UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


J  \ 

i 


A   JOURNEY   DUE    NORTH, 

IN  THE  SUMMER  OF   1856. 


JOURNEY    DUE    NORTH; 


NOTES    OF    A   RESIDENCE    IN   RUSSIA. 


BY 

GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR   AND    FIELDS. 

M  DCCC  L.VIII. 


RIVEKSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED  BY  H.  O.  HOUGIITON  AND  COMPANY. 


"  Forasmuch  as  it  is  necessarie  for  alle  those  who  minde  to  take  in  hande 
the  travelle  into  farre  and  strange  countreyes  to  endeavoure  themselves, 
not  only  to  understaunde  the  orders,  commodities,  and  fruitfullnesse  there- 
of, but  also  to  apply  them  to  the  settynge  forth  of  ye  same,  wherebye  it 
may  encourage  others  to  y«  like  travaile ;  therefore  have  I  thoughte  goode 
to  make  a  briefe  rehearsalle  of  the  order  of  this  my  travaile  in  Russia 
and  Muscovia ;  because  it  was  my  chaunce  to  fall  in  with  the  northe-easte 
parts  of  Europe  before  I  came  to  Muscovia,  I  will  faithfullye  exercise  my 
knowledge  therein." 

"  The  Book  of  the  great  and  mighty  Emperor  of  Russia,  and 
Duke  of  Muscovia,  and  of  the  dominions,  orders,  and  com- 
modities thereunto  belonging :  drawen  by  Richard  Cliancel- 
lour:  A.D.  1599." 


"  And  whereas  (he  saith)  I  have  before  made  mention  how  Muscovia 
was  in  our  time  discovered  by  Eichard  Chancellour,  in  his  voyage  toward 
Cathay,  by  the  direction  and  information  of  M.  Sebastian  Cabota,  who 
long  before  this  had  this  secret  in  his  minde,  it  is  meete  to  telle  that  the 
same  is  largely  and  faithfully  written  in  y«  Latin  tongue  by  that  learned 
yong  manne  Clement  Adams  scolemaster  to  the  Queen's  henshman,  as  he 
received  it  at  the  mouth  of  the  said  Richard  Chancellour." 

"  The  New  Navigation  and  Discoverie  of  the  Kingdom  of  Mus- 
covia by  the  Northe-Easte,  in  the  year  1553 ;  Enterprised  by 
Sir  Hugh  Willoughbie,  Knyt/hte,  and  perfoi'med  by  Richard 
Chancellour,  Pilot-maior  of  the  voyage:  A.D.  1559." 


CONTENTS. 


i. 

PAGE 
I    BEGIN   MY   JOURNEY 1 

n. 

I  AM  ABOARD  TUE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE 41 

III. 
I  LAND  AT  CRONSTADT 67 

IV. 

I    PASS    THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE,  AND   TAKE    MY  FIRST    RUS- 
SIAN   WALK 95 

V. 
ISCHVOSTCHIK  !    THE   DROSCHKY-D RIVER 120 

VI. 
THE    DROSCHKY 134 

VII. 
THE   CZAR'S    HIGHWAY ' • 153 

vin. 

GOSTINNOI-DVOR.       THE   GREAT   BAZAAR 172 

IX. 
MERCHANTS    AND    MONEY-CHANGERS • 200 

X. 
THE  SLOBODA.      A  RUSSIAN  VILLAGE .    214 


Viii  CONTENTS. 

S. 

PAGE 
A   COUNTRY   HOUSE 233 

XII. ' 
RUSSIANS  AT  HOME 263 

xm. 
HEYDE'S 298 

XIV. 
MY  BED  AND  BOARD 317 

XV. 
I  BEGIN  TO  SEE  LIFE 330 

XVI. 
HIGH  JINKS  AT  CHRISTOFFSKY 345 

xvn. 

THE    GREAT    RUSSIAN    BOGUEY   (THE    POLICE) 359 

xvm. 

MUSIC    AND   THE    DRAMA 399 

XIX. 
TCHORNI-NAROD :  (THE  BLACK  PEOPLE) 417 

XX. 
THE  IKS i 438 


L'ENVOI 456 


A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 


I   BEGIN  MY   JOURNEY. 

"  I  THANK  Heaven,"  I  said,  when  I  came  to  Erquel- 
lines,  on  the  Belgian  frontier,  "  that  I  have  done,  for 
some  time  at  least,  with  the  deplorable  everyday 
humdrum  state  of  civilization  in  which  I  have  been 
vegetating  so  long,  and  growing  so  rankly  weedy. 
Not  that  I  am  about  to  forswear  shaving,  renounce 
pantaloons,  or  relinquish  the  use  of  a  knife  and  fork 
at  meal-times.  I  hope  to  wear  clean  linen  for  many 
successive  days  to  come,  and  to  keep  myself  au 
courant  with  the  doings  of  London  through  the 
media  of  Galignani's  Messenger  and  the  Illustrated 
News,  (thrice  blessed  be  both  those  travellers'  joys!) 
Nay,  railways  shall  penetrate  whither  I  am  going, 
mixed  pickles  be  sold  wholesale  and  retail,  and  pale 
ale  be  attainable  at  a  more  or  less  exorbitant  price. 
I  am  not  bound  for  the  Ethiopio- Christian  empire  of 
Prester  John  ;  I  am  not  bound  to  sail  for  the  island 
of  Barataria ;  my  passport  is  not  made  out  for  the 
i 


2  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

kingdom  of  Utopia  (would  that  it  were) ;  I  cannot 
hope,  in  my  journey  ings,  to  see  either  the  Yang-tse- 
Kiang,  or  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  or  the  Mountains 
of  the  Moon.  I  am  going,  it  is  true,  to  t'other  side 
of  Jordan,  which  somewhat  vague  (and  American) 
geographical  definition  may  mean  the  other  side  of 
the  Straits  of  Dover,  or  the  Grecian  Archipelago,  or 
the  Great  Belt,  or  the  Pacific  Ocean.  But,  wherever 
I  go,  civilization  will  follow  me.  For  I  am  of  the 
streets,  and  streety — eis  tenpolin  is  my  haven.  Like 
the  starling,  I  can't  get  out  of  cities ;  and  now,  that 
I  have  come  sixteen  hundred  miles,  it  is  but  to 
another  city — another  tumour  of  streets  and  houses 
and  jostling  crowds ;  and  from  my  windows  I  can 
see  a  post,  and  wires  stretching  from  it,  the  extreme 
end  of  which  I  know  to  be  in  Lothbury,  London. 

I  am  not  so  wisely  foolish  to  imagine  or  to  de- 
clare that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun  ;  only 
the  particular  ray  of  sunlight  that  illumines  me  in 
my  state  of  life  has  fallen  upon  me  so  long,  and 
dwells  on  me  with  such  a  persistent  sameness,  bright 
as  it  is,  that  I  am  dazed,  and  sun-sick  ;  and,  when  I 
shut  my  eyes,  have  but  one  green  star  before  me, 
which  obstinately  refuses  to  assume  the  kaleido- 
scopic changes  I  delight  in.  I  must  go  away,  I  said. 
I  must  rub  this  rust  of  soul  and  body  off.  I  must 
have  a  change  of  grass.  I  want  strange  dishes  to 
disagree  with  me.  I  want  to  be  scorched  or  frozen 
in  another  latitude.  I  want  to  learn  another  alpha- 
bet; to  conjugate  verbs  in  another  fashion;  to  be 
happy  or  miserable  from  other  circumstances  than 
those  that  gladden  or  sorrow  me  now.  If  I  could 


I   BEGIN   MY  JOURNEY.  3 

be  hard  up,Ffor  instance,  on  the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  or 
wistfully  eyeing  my  last  real  at  the  Puerta  del  Sol ; 
if  I  could  be  sued  on  a  bill  drawn  in  the  Sanskrit 
character,  or  be  threatened  with  arrest  by  a  Mahom- 
etan hatti-sheriff's-officer ;  if  I  could  incur  perdition 
through  not  believing  in  the  seven  incarnations  of 
Vishnu,  instead  of  the  thirty-nine  Articles ;  if  I  could 
be  importuned  for  copy  by  the  editor  of  the  Mofus- 
silite,  and  not  the  Morning  Meteor ;  if  I  could  have 
the  plague,  or  the  vomito  nero,  or  the  plica  polonica, 
instead  of  the  English  headache  and  blues,  the 
change  would  be  advantageous — salutary,  I  think. 
I  am  sure  I  should  be  much  better  off  if  I  could 
change  my  own  name,  and  forget  my  ownself  for  a 
time.  But  oh !  civilization  and  Foreign  Office  pass- 
port system — George  William  Frederick  Earl  of 
Clarendon,  Baron  Hyde  of  Hindon,  won't  hear  of 
that.  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  change ;  I  am 
determined,  I  said,  to  depart  out  of  this  kingdom ; 
but  the  Earl  and  Baron  insists  on  stamping,  and 
numbering,  and  registering  me  (all  for  the  small  sum 
of  seven  and  sixpence)  before  I  go.  George  William 
Frederick  pounces  upon  me  as  a  British  subject 
travelling  abroad  ;  asserts  himself,  his  stars  and  gar- 
ters, at  great  length,  all  over  a  sheet  of  blue  foolscap 
paper,  affectionately  entreats  all  authorities,  civil  and 
military,  to  render  me  aid  and  assistance  whenever 
I  stand  in  need  of  them,  (I  should  like  to  catch  them 
doing  any  thing  of  the  sort!)  and  sends  me  abroad 
with  the  royal  arms,  his  own,  and  a  five-shilling  re- 
ceipt stamp  tacked  to  me,  like  a  bird  with  a  string 
tied  to  his  leg. 


4  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NOHTII. 

I  am  bound  on  a  stern,  long,  cruel,  rigid  journey, 
far,  far  away,  to  the  extreme  right-hand  top  corner 
of  the  map  of  Europe — but  first  Due  North.  And 
here  I  am  at  Erquellines  on  the  frontier  of  the  king- 
dom of  Belgium  ;  and  this  is  why  I  thanked  Heaven 
I  was  here.  Not  very  far  northward  is  Erquellines  ; 
and  yet  I  felt  as  if  I  had  passed  the  Rubicon,  when 
a  parti-coloured  sentry-box,  the  counterfeit  present- 
ment of  the  peculiarly  sheepish-looking  Belgian  lion 
sitting  on  his  hind-legs,  with  the  legend  "  Union  is 
strength,"  (and,  indeed,  I  think  it  would  take  a  good 
many  of  these  lions  to  make  a  strong  one,)  and  a 
posse  of  custom-house  officers — kindly,  but  pud- 
ding headed  in  appearance — told  me  that  I  was  in 
the  Royaume  de  Belgique. 

I  am,  under  ordinary  travelling  circumstances, 
exceedingly  fond  of  the  compact  little  kingdom  of 
King  Leopold.  I  look  at  it  as  a  fat,  sensible,  easy- 
going, respectable,  happy-go-lucky  sort  of  country. 
Very  many  pleasant  days  and  hours  have  its  quaint, 
quiet  cities,  its  roomy  farm-houses,  its  picture  gal- 
leries, and  sleepy  canal  boats,  its  beer,  and  tobacco 
afforded  me.  I  cannot  join  in  the  patriotic  enthu- 
siasm about '  les  braves  BelgesJ  because  I  consider 
the  Belgians — being  a  sensible  people — to  be  the 
very  reverse  of  valiant ;  neither  can  I  sympathize 
much  with  the  archaeological  public-spiritedness  of 
those  Belgian  servants  who  are  anxious  to  restore 
the  Flemish  language  to  its  primeval  richness  and 
purity,  and  have  published  the  romance  of  Reynard 
the  Fox  in  the  original  Low  Dutch.  As  I  think  it 
to  be  the  most  hideous  dialect  in  Europe,  I  would 


I  BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  6 

rather  they  had  let  it  be.  And  to  say  the  truth,  I 
am  rather  tired  of  hearing  about  the  Duke  of  Alva, 
and  of  the  Count  of  Egmont  and  Horn — though 
both  worthy  men  in  their  way,  doubtless — whose  de- 
collation and  behaviour  prior  to  and  following  that 
ceremony  the  Belgian  painters  have  a  mania  for 
representing  only  second  to  our  abhorred  Finding- 
of-the-Body-of-Haroldophobia.  And  specially  do  I 
object  to,  and  protest  against,  in  Belgium,  the  Field 
of  Waterloo  and  all  appertaining  thereto ;  the  knav- 
ish livery-stable  keepers  in  Brussels,  who  swindle 
you  if  you  take  a  conveyance  to  the  field ;  the  beg- 
gars on  the  road ;  the  magnified  dustheap  with  the 
abashed  poodle  fumbling  with  a  ball  of  worsted  on 
the  summit,  and  called  the  Mountain  of  the  Lion ; 
the  disforested  forest  of  Soignes ;  the  indifferent 
outhouse  called  the  farm  of  Hougomont,  and  the 
Voice  from  Waterloo,  by  the  deceased  Sergeant- 
Major  Cotton.  But  I  love  Belgium,  nevertheless — 
so  did  Julius  Caisar.  Antwerp — though  the  multi- 
plicity of  Rubenses  give  me  almost  as  much  of  a 
surfeit  as  a  month's  apprenticeship  in  a  pastrycook's 
shop,  would  do — Antwerp  is  my  delight:  I  can 
wander  for  hours  in  that  marvellous  amalgam  of  the 
Alhambra,  the  Crystal  Palace,  and  a  Flemish  man- 
sion, the  Exchange,  and  on  the  port  I  fancy  myself 
in  Cadiz,  now  in  Venice,  now  in  some  old  English 
seaport  of  the  middle  ages.  Of  Brussels  it  behoves 
me  to  speak  briefly,  and  with  reticence,  for  that 
charming,  sparkling,  lively,  genial,  warm-hearted 
little  capital  holds  the  very  next  place  in  my  affec- 
tions to  Paris  the  beloved.  Yet  I  stay  only  as  many 


6  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

hours  in  Brussels,  as,  were  I  on  another  errand,  I 
should  stay  days.  Due  North  is  my  destination,  so 
I  go  to  Liege.  I  can't  help  gazing  till  I  am  satiated 
at  the  wondrous  panorama  that  stretches  out  before 
me  as  we  descend  the  four  or  five  hundred  feet  gra- 
dient of  descent  that  leads  into  the  valley  of  the 
Meuse,  and  as  the  train  slides  down  the  precipitous 
almost  fearful  inclined  plane  I  drink  in  all  the  mar- 
vels of  the  scene,  enhanced  as  they  are  by  the 
golden  evening  sunlight.  I  watch  the  domes  and 
cupolas  and  quaint  church  spires,  and  even  the  fac- 
tory chimneys,  glorified  into  Oriental  minarets  by 
the  delusive  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  Much  should 
I  like  to  alight  at  Liege,  and  seeking  my  inn  take 
my  rest  there ;  but  an  inward  voice  tells  me  that  I 
have  no  business  in  Liege,  that  still  Due  North  is 
my  irrevocable  route,  and  so  I  let  the  train  go  on  its 
rattling  roaring  route,  and  compose  myself  to  sleep 
till  it  shall  carry  me  at  its  gruff  will  and  pleasure 
over  the  frontier  of  Prussia. 

So  ;  at  last  at  Herbesthal,  and  beneath  the  sway 
of  the  Belgian  lion's  harmless  tail  no  longer.  I  am 
testy  and  drowsy,  and  feel  half  inclined  to  recent, 
as  a  personal  affront,  the  proceedings  of  a  tall  indi- 
vidual, cloaked,  moustachioed,  and  helmeted,  who 
appears  Banshee-like  at  the  carriage,  pokes  a  lantern 
in  my  face,  and,  in  the  Teutonic  tongue,  demands 
my  passport.  I  remember,  however,  with  timely 
resignation,  that  I  am  going  Due  North,  to  the  do- 
minions of  Ursa  Major,  the  great  Panjandrum  of 
passports,  and  that  I  am  as  yet  but  a  very  young 
bear,  indeed,  with  all  my  passport-troubles  to  come ; 


I  BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  7 

so  I  give  the  Baron  Hyde  of  Hindon's  letter  of  rec- 
ommendation to  the  man  in  the  helmet,  and  fall 
into  an  uneasy  sleep  again.  I  hope  it  may  do 
him  good! 

Was  it  at  Liege  or  Pepinstern  on  the  Spa  Road 
(how  different  from  that  other  Spa- Road  Station,  I 
know,  on  the  Greenwich  Railway,  where  attic-win- 
dows blink  at  the  locomotive  as  it  rushes  by,  and 
endless  perspectives  of  the  ventilated  brick  lanes 
and  fluttering  clothes-lines  tell  of  the  ugly  neigh- 
bourhood where  outlying  tanners  dwell,  and  rail- 
way stokers  live  when  they  are  at  home ;  whereas 
this  Spa  Road  is  a  delicious  little  gorge  between 
purple  underwooded  hills,  with  gayly-painted  cot- 
tages, and  peasant-women  in  red  petticoats,  and 
little  saints  in  sentry-boxes  by  the  wayside,  and 
along  which  I  see  ladies  on  horseback,  and  mous- 
tachioed cavaliers  careering  towards  Spa,  one  of 
the  most  charming  little  watering-places  in  Europe) ; 
at  which  station  was  it,  I  wonder,  that  we  changed 
the  lumbering,  roomy,  drablined  first-class  carriages 
of  the  Nord,  with  their  sheepskin  rugs,  and  zinc 
hot-water  boxes,  for  these  spruce,  glistening,  coquet- 
tish carriages,  so  daintily  furbished  out  with  mo- 
rocco leather,  and  plate-glass,  and  varnished  mahog- 
any— (when  will  English  railway-travellers  be  eman- 
cipated from  the  villanous,  flea-bitten  pig-boxes, 
first,  second,  and  third  class,  into  which,  after  paying 
exorbitant  fares  they  are  thrust) — when  was  it  that 
an  imperceptible  fluffiness,  and  albine  tendency  of 
hat,  a  shinyness  of  cap-peaks,  an  eccentricity  of  boot- 
tips,  a  braidiness  of  coats,  a  prevalence  of  embroid- 


8  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

ered  travelling-pouches,  a  greenness  of  veils,  a 
twinkling  of  spectacles,  a  blondness  of  beards,  a 
gaudiness  of  umbrellas,  and  a  gutturalness  of  accent, 
together  with  the  bold  and  sudden  repudiation  of 
the  doctrine  that  tobacco-smoking  on  railways  is 
prohibited,  and  must  only  be  furtively  indulged  in 
(the  major  part  of  the  smoke  finding  its  way  up  the 
coat-sleeve)  with  the  reluctantly  extorted  consent  of 
the  young  ladies  who  have  nerves,  and  the  pettish 
old  gentlemen,  and,  above  all,  a  wavering,  mysteri- 
ous, but  potent  smell,  a  drowsy  compound  of  the 
odours  of  pomatum,  sauerkraut,  gas-meters,  and 
stale  tobacco-smoke,  told  me  that  I  had  crossed 
another  frontier,  and  that  I  was  in  Germany  ? 

The  train  being  once  more  in  motion  in  its  way 
(south  this  time)  towards  Cologne,  I  perused  my 
passport  by  the  light  of  the  carriage  lamp,  and  saw 
where  its  virgin  blueness  had  been  sullied  by  the 
first  patch  of  printing  ink,  scrawled  writing  and. 
sand  forming  a  visa.  The  Black  Eagle  of  Prussia 
had  been  good  enough  to  flap  his  wings  for  the  first 
time  on  George  William  Frederick's  talisman.  He 
was  good  for  a  flight  to  Koln  or  Cologne ;  but  he 
was  dated  from  Aachen,  which  Aachen  I  have  just 
left,  and  which, — bless  me!  where  were  my  eyes 
and  memory? — must  have  been  Aix-la-Chapelle. 

I  consider  it  to  have  been  an  exceedingly  lucky 
circumstance  for  the  reader  of  this  paper  that  I,  the 
Digressor,  did  not  arrive  at  the  City  of  Cologne  on 
the  Rhine  till  half-past  eleven  o'clock  at  night ;  that 
it  was  pitch  dark,  and  raining  heavily ;  that  entering 
a  cab  I  caused  myself  to  be  driven  "  right  away " 


I  BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  9 

over  the  bridge  of  boats  to  the  Hotel  Doopeepel,  in 
the  suburbs  of  Deutz ;  that,  being  dog-tired,  I  went 
immediately  to  bed,  and  that  I  left  Cologne  for 
Berlin  by  the  first  train  at  six  A.  M.  the  next  morn- 
ing. I  consider  this  lucky  for  the  reader,  because  if 
I  had  had  any  time  to  wander  about  the  streets 
of  Cologne,  I  should  infallibly  have  launched  into 
dissertations  on  the  cathedral,  the  market-women, 
the  aforesaid  bridge  of  boats,  the  horrifying  smells, 
the  quaint  houses,  Jean  Marie  Farina,  and — who 
knows ! — the  three  kings  and  the  eleven  thousand 
virgins. 

Under  existing  circumstances,  all  I  at  present 
have  to  say  of  the  place  is,  that  the  landlord  of  the 
Grand  Hotel  Doopeepel,  at  Deutz,  deserves  a  civic 
crown,  or  a  large  gold  medal,  or  a  sword  of  honour — 
at  all  events  he  ought  to  have  his  deserts ;  and  I 
should  like  to  have  the  task  of  giving  him  what  he 
deserves,  for  the  skill  and  ingenuity  displayed  in 
making  my  bill  for  a  night's  lodging,  and  some 
trifling  refreshment,  amount  to  five  Prussian  dollars, 
or  fifteen  shillings  sterling.  The  best  or  the  worst 
of  it  was,  that  I  could  not  dispute  any  of  the  items. 
I  had  certainly  had  them  all.  Bed,  wax  lights, 
attendance,  coffee,  thimbleful  of  brandy,  cigar,  loaf 
of  bread  like  a  hardened  muffin,  couple  of  boiled 
eggs  ;  but  oh,  in  such  infinitesimal  quantities  !  As 
for  the  eggs,  they  might  have  been  laid  by  a  hum- 
ming-bird. The  demand  of  the  bill  was  prodigious, 
the  supply  marvellously  small,  but  I  paid  it  admir- 
ingly, as  one  would  pay  to  see  a  child  with  two 
heads,  or  a  bearded  lady. 


10  A   JOURNEY   DUE    NORTH. 

There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among  travelling 
sages,  as  to  whether  a  man  ought  under  any  circum- 
stances to  travel  first-class  by  rail  in  Germany.  The 
first-class  carriages  are  luxurious — nay,  even  splen- 
did vehicles,  softly  padded,  lined  with  crimson  vel- 
vet, and  extensively  decorated  with  silken  fringes 
and  curtains.  On  the  other  hand,  the  second-class 
carriages  are  also  lined  and  padded,  and  are  at  least 
seventy-five  per  cent,  more  comfortable  than  our 
best  English  first-class  carriages.  Moreover,  in  the 
second-class,  there  are  but  two  compartments  to  a 
seat  for  four  persons,  so  that,  if  the  carriage  be  not 
full,  you  may  recline  at  full  length  on  the  cushions, 
which,  In  night-travelling,  is  very  comfortable,  and 
rejoices  you  much;  but  then  the  reverse  to  that 
medal  is,  that  German  second-class  carriages  are 
nearly  invariably  full  to  the  window-sill.  The  Ger- 
mans themselves  repudiate  the  first-class  stoutly, 
and  it  has  passed  into  a  Viator's  proverb,  that  none 
but  "  princes,  Englishmen,  and  fools,  travel  by  the 
first-class."  I  have  no  particular  affection  for  Eng- 
lishmen abroad,  but  I  like  the  company  of  princes, 
and  you  may  often  have  worse  travelling  compan- 
ions than  fools ;  so  I  travel,  when  I  can  afford  it, 
first  class.  There  are  other  temptations  thereto. 
The  carriage  is  seldom  more  than  half-full,  if 
that,  and  you  may  change  your  place  when  you 
list,  which,  in  a  dragging  journey  of  three  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  or  so,  is  a  privilege  of  no  small  mo- 
ment ;  and  you  have  plenty  of  side-room  for  your 
rugs,  and  your  books,  and  your  carpet-bags.  Then, 
again,  there  are  but  six  passengers  to  a  carriage 


I   BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  11 

instead  of  eight;  and  again,  besides  the  possible 
proximity  of  his  effulgency  the  reigning  Grand 
Duke  of  Gumpetpeiskirchen-Herrenbonen,  the  Eng- 
glishman  and  the  fool,  you  may  have  as  a  travelling 
companion  a  lady,  young,  pretty,  tastefully  dressed 
and  adorably  affable,  as  the  triumphant  majority  of 
German  ladies  (bless  them  !)  are ;  and  this  lady  will 
smile  at  your  mistakes  in  German,  but  without 
wounding  your  amour  propre,  and  will  teach  you 
more  of  that  hard-mouthed  language — vivd  voce — 
in  ten  minutes  than  you  would  learn  in  a  month 
from  a  grammar  and  vocabulary,  or  from  university- 
professor  Doctor  Schinkelstrumpf  's  two-dollar  les- 
sons. And  this  lady  (whom  you  long  immediately 
to  call  "  du,"  and  fall  on  your  knees  in  the  carriage 
before)  will  ask  you  questions  about  the  barbarous 
country  you  inhabit,  and  explain  to  you  the  use  and 
meaning  of  common  things,  such  as  windmills, 
milestones,  electric-telegraph  posts,  brick  kilns,  and 
the  like,  with  a  naivete  and  simple-mindedness,  de- 
liriously delightful  to  contemplate ;  she  will  give 
you  little  meat-pies  and  sweet  cakes  to  eat  from  her 
own  amply-stored  bags ;  she  will  even — if  you  are 
very  agreeable  and  well-behaved — allow  you  to 
comfort  yourself  outwardly  with  a  dash  of  eau-de- 
Cologne  from  a  silver-mounted  phial,  and  inwardly 
with  a  sip  from  a  wicker-covered  flask  containing  a 
liquid  whose  nature  it  is  no  business  of  yours  to 
inquire ;  she  will  sing  you  little  German  leider  in  a 
silvery  voice,  and  cut  the  leaves  of  your  book  with 
an  imitation  poniard ; — and  all  this  she  will  do  with 
such  an  unaffected  kindness  and  simple  dignity  that 


12  A  JOURNEY  DU.E  NORTH. 

the  traveller  who  would  presume  upon  them,  or  be 
rude  to  her,  must  be  a  doubly-distilled  brute  and 
Pig,  and  only  fit  to  travel  in  the  last  truck  of  an 
Eastern  Counties  fish-train,  or  to  take  care  of  the 
blind  monkeys  in  the  Zoological  Gardens. 

And  all  good  -spirits  bless  and  multiply  the  fair 
ladies  of  Germany!  They  never  object  to  smok- 
ing. There  are  certain  carriages — ufur  Damen  " — 
into  which  the  men  creatures  are  not  allowed  to 
penetrate,  and  from  which  tobacco  smoke  is,  as  a 
rule,  excluded,  though  it  is  difficult  enough  to  banish 
the  exhalations  from  the  neighbouring  carriages ; 
but  the  ladies  seldom  (the  nice  ones  never)  patron- 
ize the  carriages  especially  affected  to  their  use. 
They  just  take  railway  pot-luck  with  the  ruder 
sex;  and  as  for  smoking — cigar-smoking  be  it  al- 
ways understood — they  like  it ;  they  delight  in  it ; 
elles  en  raffolent.  They  know,  sagacious  creatures, 
that  a  traveller  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth  is  twice 
a  Man;  that  the  fumes  of  the  fragrant  Havana 
loosen  the  tongue,  and  open  the  heart,  and  dispel 
awkwardness  and  diffidence ;  that  he  who  wants  to 
smoke,  and  is  prevented  from  smoking,  always  feels 
aggrieved  and  oppressed,  and  is  correspondingly 
sulky,  disobliging,  and  morose.  The  only  drawback 
to  the  society  of  the  German  lady  in  the  railway 
carriage  is  this  :  that  when  she  alights  at  a  station, 
and  in  her  handbell-toned  voice  bids  you  adieu  and 
bon  voyage — sometimes  pronounced  "  pon  foyache  " 
— there  are  always  waiting  on  the  platform  for  her 
other  ladies  young  and  pretty  as  herself,  or  else 
moustachioed  relations  (I  hope  they  are  relations), 


I   BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  13 

who  fall  to  kissing  her,  and  pressing  both  her  hands, 
till  you  fall  into  despair,  and  howl  with  rage  in  your 
crimson  velvet  prisoners'  van.  Then  the  train  rolls 
away,  and  you  feel  that  there  is  a  nature-abhorred 
vacuum  in  the  left-hand  corner  of  your  waistcoat, 
and  that  Fraulein  von  Name  Unknown  has  taken 
your  heart  away  with  her,  and  is  now,  probably, 
hanging  it  over  her  chimney-piece  as  a  trophy,  as  an 
Indian  chief  suspends  the  scalps  of  his  enemies  to 
the  poles  of  his  hunting-lodge. 

On  this  present  due-northern  journey  I  must  con- 
fess I  did  not  lose  my  heart,  for  we  were  ladyless  all 
the  way;  but  the  average  first-class  travelling  com- 
panions I  had.  There  was  a  Prince — so  at  least  I 
conjectured  the  asthmatic  old  gentleman  who  left  us 
at  Diisseldorf  to  be;  for  who  but  a  Prince  could 
have  possessed  such  a  multiplicity  of  parti-coloured 
ribbons  belonging  to  as  many  orders  (a  little  soap 
and  water  would  have  done  them  a  world  of  good) 
pinned  on  the  breast  of  his  brown  surtout,  so  much 
fragrant  snuff  on  his  embroidered  jabot,  and  such 
an  impenetrably  wise  and  aristocratic  face  ?  Yes, 
he  must  have  been  a  Prince,  with  seventy -five  quar- 
terings  at  least  on  his  'scutcheon.  Then  there  was 
an  Englishman  (besides  your  humble  servant)  and 
there  was  a  Fool.  Such  a  fool !  Insipiens  serenissi- 
mus.  He  was  a  Frenchman,  fat,  fair,  self-compla- 
cent, and  smiling,  with  some  worsted-work  embroid- 
ery on  his  head  for  a  couvrechet  like  a  kettle-holder 
pinned  into  a  circular  form.  There  were  mediaeval 
letters  worked  on  it,  and  I  tried  hard  to  read  "  Polly 
put  the  kettle  on,"  but  could  not.  He  was  going  to 


14  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

Dresden,  where  he  was  to  stay  a  week,  and  exhibited 
to  us  every  ten  minutes  or  so  a  letter  of  credit  on  a 
banker  there,  and  asked  us  if  we  thought  four  thou- 
sand florins  would  be  enough  to  last  him  during  his 
sojourn.  He  was  as  profoundly,  carelessly,  gayly, 
contentedly  ignorant  of  things  which  the  merest 
travelling  tyro  is  usually  conversant  with  as  a 
Frenchman  could  well  be ;  but  he  knew  all  about 
the  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  and  that  was  quite 
enough  for  him.  He  laughed  and  talked  inces- 
santly, but,  like  the  jolly  young  waterman,  it  was 
about  nothing  at  all.  He  could  not  smoke  :  it  gave 
him  a  pain  in  his  limbs,  he  said ;  but  he  liked  much 
to  witness  the  operation.  Like  most  fools,  he  had 
a  Fixed  Idea ;  and  this  fixed  idea  happened  to  be  a 
most  excellent  one — being  no  other  than  this,  that 
the  German  beer  was  very  good,  (so  it  is,  compara- 
tively, after  the  Strasbourg  and  Biere  de  Mars 
abominations,)  and  that  it  was  desirable  to  drink 
as  much  of  it  as  could  possibly  be  obtained.  He 
alighted  at  every  station,  to  drink  a  draught  of 
creaming  though  mawkish  beverage,  and  seemed 
deeply  mortified  when  the  train  did  not  stop  long 
enough  for  him  to  make  a  journey  to  the  buffet,  and 
half  inclined  to  quarrel  with  me  when  I  persuaded 
him  to  take  a  petit  verre  of  cognac  at  Minden,  as  a 
corrective  to  the  malt.  But  he  was  an  hospitable 
and  liberal  simpleton,  and  when  we  declined  our- 
selves to  alight,  he  would  come  with  a  beaming 
countenance  and  a  Tom-fool's  joke  to  the  carriage 
window,  holding  a  great  foaming  glass  tankard, 
with  a  pewter  cover,  of  Bock  Bier,  or  else  a  bottle 


I   BEGIN   MY  JOURNEY.  15 

of  it  to  last  to  the  next  station.  I  am  not  ashamed 
to  say  that  I  drank  his  health  several  times  between 
Diisseldorf  and  Hanover,  and,  what  is  more,  wished 
him  good  health  with  all  my  heart. 

The  German  railway  buffets  are  capital  places  of 
"  restoration  ;  "  true  oases  in  the  great  desert  of  cut- 
tings and  embankments.  The  fare  is  plentiful, 
varied,  and  cheap — cheap,  at  least,  if  you  received 
any  tiling  like  Christian  money  in  change  for  the 
napoleons  or  five-frank  pieces  your  money-changer 
gave  for  that  blessed  bank  note  signed  "  J.  Fereaby," 
in  the  Palais  Royal  at  Paris ;  but  what  intensity  of 
disgustful  reprobation  can  be  sufficient  to  character- 
ize the  vile  dross  that  is  forced  upon  you,  the  de- 
based fiddlers'  money,  that  you  are  ashamed  to  put 
in  your  purse,  and  half  inclined  to  fling  out  of  the 
window ;  the  poverty-stricken,  clipped,  measly, 
pockmarked,  greasy,  slimy  silbergroschen,  neuegros- 
chen,  grosgroschen,  and  gudegroschen,  (the  eulogistic 
adjectives  silver,  new,  big,  good,  to  these  leprous 
testoons  all  breathe  the  bitterest  satire.)  A  German 
refreshment  room  is  a  receptacle  for  all  the  lame, 
halt,  and  blind  coins  of  the  Zollverein,  the  monetary 
refuse  of  Prussia,  Saxony,  Bavaria,  Austria,  Hano- 
ver, Mecklenburg,  and  the  infinite  variety  of  smaller 
tinpot  states ;  nay,  you  are  very  lucky  if  the  waiters 
do  not  contrive  to  give  you  a  sprinkling  of  Hamburg 
and  Lubeck  money,  with  a  few  Copenhagen  sckill- 
ings,  and  Schleswig-Holstein  marks.  The  rogues 
know  that  you  have  no  time  to  question  or  dispute ; 
they  take  care  not  to  give  you  your  change  till  the 
starting-bell  rings;  and  by  the  time  you  have 


16  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

counted  the  abominable  heap  of  marine-store  money 
and  have  got  over  your  first  outbursts  of  passion, 
you  are  half-a-dozen  miles  away.  As  a  climax  01 
villany,  the  change  they  give  you  at  one  station  is 
not  current,  or  is  said  not  to  be  so,  at  the  next. 
Say,  waiter  at  Bienenbuttel,  is  not  this  the  case? 
And  didst  thou  not  contumeliously  refuse  my  Prus- 
sian piece  of  ten  groschen  ? 

Why  should  it  be  that  in  England,  the  great  mar- 
ket of  the  world,  amply  provisioned  as  it  is,  and 
with  its  unrivalled  facilities  of  communication,  re- 
freshment rooms,  not  only  on  railways,  but  in  thea- 
tres, gardens,  and  other  places  of  amusement,  should 
be  so  scantily  and  poorly  furnished,  and  at  such  ex- 
tortionate prices?  Why  should  our  hunger  be 
mocked  by  those  dried-up  Dead  Sea  fruits,  those 
cheesecakes  that  seem  to  contain  nothing  but  saw- 
dust, those  sandwiches  resembling  thin  planks  of 
wood  with  a  strata  of  dried  glue  between  them, 
those  three-weeks-old  pork  and  veal  pies,  all  over 
bumps  full  of  delusive  promise,  but  containing  noth- 
ing but  little  cubes  of  tough  gristle  and  antediluvian 
fat ;  those  byegone  buns  with  the  hard,  cracked 
varnish-like  veneering;  that  hopeless  cherry-brandy, 
with  the  one  attenuated  little  cherry  bobbing  about 
in  the  vase  like  a  shrivelled  black  buoy ;  that  flatu- 
lent lemonade  tasting  of  the  cork  and  the  wire,  and 
of  the  carbonic  acid  gas,  but  of  the  lemon  never; 
that  bottled  brown  stout  like  so  much  bottled  soap- 
suds ;  that  scalding  infusion  of  birch-broom  mis- 
called tea ;  and  that  unsavoury  compound  of  warm 
plate-washings  facetiously  christened  soup  ?  Why 


I   BEGIN  MY   JOURNEY.  17 

should  English  railway  travellers  be  starved  as  well 
as  smashed  ?  Sir  Frances  Head  tells  us  that  they 
keep  pigs  at  Wolverton,  who,  in  course  of  time,  are 
promoted  into  pork  pies ;  but  the  promotion  must 
surely  go  by  seniority.  Look,  for  comparison,  at  the 
French  buffets,  with  the  savoury  soup  always  ready ; 
the  sparkling  little  carafons  of  wine,  the  convenient 
cotelette,  the  tempting  slices  of  pate<de-foie  gras,  the 
crisp  fresh  loaves  of  bread,  and  all  at  really  moder- 
ate prices.  Look  again  at  the  German  refreshment- 
rooms.  That  practical  people  (though  they  do  in- 
dulge in  smoking  and  metaphysics  to  such  an  extent) 
have  a  system  of  refreshment  called  "  thumb  restau- 
ration."  This  consists  of  the  famous  butterbrod,  or 
compact  little  crust  of  bread  and  butter  on  which  is 
laid  ham,  cold  meat,  poultry,  game,  dried  salmon,  or 
caviare!  The  first  sight  of  that  glistening  black 
condiment  startled  me,  and  made  me  feel  Due  North  , 
more  than  ever. 

Minden,  Hanover,  Brunswick,  have  been  passed. 
The  armorial  white  horse  made  his  appearance  at 
the  second  of  these  places  on  the  coinage  of  the 
poor  blind  king,  and  on  a  flaring  escutcheon  in  front 
of  the  railway  terminus.  At  Brunswick  there  was 
a  fete  in  honour  of  the  twenty  somethingeth  of  the 
anniversary  of  the  accession  of  the  reigning  duke, 
which  I  suppose  must  be  a  source  of  great  annual 
satisfaction  to  the  sovereign  in  question,  as  well  as 
to  that  other  duke  who  doesn't  reign  but  lives  in 
Paris,  paints  his  cheeks,  wears  the  big  diamonds,  has 
an  arsenal  round  his  bedstead,  and  a  mint  of  money 
underneath  it,  and  is  such  a  particular  friend  of  the 


18  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

heaven-sent  emperor  Napoleon  the  Third.  The  ter- 
minus was  plentifully  decorated  with  evergreens  and 
banners ;  there  was  a  great  deal  of  dust  and  music 
and  beer-drinking  going  on,  (the  chief  ingredients, 
with  smoking,  of  a  German  fete,)  and  the  platform 
was  crowded  with  Brunswickers  in  holiday  attire : 
beaux  and  belles  in  Teutonic-Parisian  trim,  and 
ruddy,  straw-haired  and  straw-hatted  country  folk 
in  resplendent  gala-dresses.  To  give  you  a  notion 
of  the  appearance  of  the  more  youthful  female 
Brunswickers,  I  must  recall  to  your  remembrance 
the  probable  appearance  of  the  little  old  woman, 
who,  going  to  market,  inadvertently  fell  asleep  by 
the  king's  highway,  and  with  whose  garments  such 
unwarrantable  liberties  were  taken  by  a  wretch  by 
the  name  of  Stout,  a  tinker  by  profession.  The 
peasant  girls  of  Brunswick  look  as  the  little  old 
woman  must  have  looked  when  she  awoke  from  her 
nap ;  so  brief  are  their  skirts,  and  so  apparently  un- 
recognized among  them  is  the  use  of  the  supfusk 
garments  christened  by  our  prudish  female  cousins 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  "  pantalettes ;  "  but 
they  wear  variegated  hose  with  embroidered  clocks, 
and  their  mothers  have  bidden  them,  as  the  song 
says,  "  bind  their  hair  with  bands  of  rosy  hue,  and 
tie  up  their  sleeves  with  ribbons  rare,  and  lace  their 
boddice  blue,"  and  Lubin,  happily,  is  not  far  away, 
but  close  at  hand,  and  very  pretty  couples  they  make 
with  their  yellow  hair  tied  in  two  ribboned  tails  be- 
hind. Mingling  with  the  throng  too,  I  see  some 
soldiers  I  have  been  anxious,  for  many  a  long  year, 
to  be  on  visual  terms  with, — soldiers  clad  all  in 


I  BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  19 

sable,  with  nodding  black  plumes,  bugle  ornaments 
to  their  uniforms,  and  death's-heads  and  cross-bones 
on  their  shakoes.  These  are  the  renowned  Black 
Brunswickers ;  and  I  am  strangely  reminded,  look- 
ing at  them,  of  him  that  sate  in  the  windowed  niche 
of  the  high  hall,  alone,  cheerless,  brooding,  thinking 
only  of  the  bloody  bier  of  his  father,  and  of  revenge : 
— of  that  valiant  chieftain  of  the  Black  Brunswick- 
ers who  left  the  Duchess  of  Richmond's  ball  to  die 
at  Quatre  Bras. 

I  wish  the  Germans  wouldn't  call  Brunswick 
Braunschweig  ;  it  destroys  the  illusion.  I  can't 
think  of  the  illustrious  house  that  has  given  a  dy- 
nasty to  the  British  throne  as  the  house  of  Braun- 
schweig. It  is  as  cacaphonous  in  sound  as  would  be 
the  house  of  Physic-bottles,  instead  of  the  house  of 
Medici,  but  our  Teuton  friends  seem  to  have  a  genius 
for  uglifying  high-sounding  names.  They  call  El- 
sinore  (Hamlet's  Elsinore)  Helsingborg  ;  Vienna, 
Wien ;  Munich,  Miinchen ;  Cologne,  Koln,  and  the 
Crimea,  Krim.  Can  there  be  any  thing  noble,  proper 
to  a  famous  battle-field  where  the  bones  of  heroes 
lie  whitening  in  the  word  Krim  ? 

The  Frenchman,  who  was  a  fool,  left  us  at  the 
Prussian  fortress  town  of  Magdebourg,  where  also 
the  Englishman  (who  was  any  thing  but  a  fool,  a 
thorough  man  of  the  world,  in  fact,  and  of  whom  I 
intend  you  to  hear  further  in  the  course  of  these 
travels)  also  bade  me  adieu  at  this  station.  Then  I 
was  left  alone  in  my  glory  to  ponder  over  the  his- 
torical places  I  had  been  hurried  through  since  six 
o'clock  that  morning ;  I  thought  of  Diisseldorf,  and 


20  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

Overbeck  the  painter,  of  the  battle  of  Minden,  and 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland  and  Lord  George  Sack- 
ville ;  of  Hanover,  George  the  First  and  his  bad 
oysters ;  of  Magdebourg  and  Baron  Trenck,  till  I 
went  to  sleep,  and  waking  found  myself  at  Potsdam. 
I  found  that  I  had  another  travelling  companion 
here  in  the  person  of  a  magnificent  Incarnation,  all 
ringleted,  oiled,  scented,  dress-coated,  and  watered- 
silk-faced,  braided,  frogged,  ringed,  jewelled,  patent- 
leathered,  amber-headed  sticked,  and  straw-colored 
kid-gloved,  who  had  travelled  in  the  same  train,  from 
Cologne,  but  had  been  driven  out  of  the  adjoining 
carriage,  he  said  by  the  execrable  fumes  of  the  Ger- 
man cigars,  and  now  was  good  enough  to  tolerate 
me,  owing  to  a  mild  and  undeniably  Havana  cigar 
I  lighted.  This  magnificent  creature  shone  like  a 
meteor  in  the  narrow  carriage.  The  lamp  mirrored 
itself  in  his  glistening  equipment ;  his  gloves  and 
boots  fitted  so  tightly,  that  you  felt  inclined  to  think 
that  he  had  varnished  his  hands  straw-color,  and  his 
feet  black.  There  was  not  a  crease  in  his  fine  linen, 
a  speck  of  dust  on  his  superfine  Saxony  sables,  his 
waxed-moustachioes  and  glossy  ringlets.  I  felt 
ashamed,  embaled  as  I  w.as  in  rugs  and  spatter- 
dashes, and  a  fur  cap,  and  a  courier's  pouch,  all 
dusty  and  travel-stained,  when  I  contemplated  this 
bandbox  voyageur,  so  spruce  and  kempt,  the  only 
sign  of  whose  being  away  from  home,  was  a  mag- 
nificent mantle  lined  with  expensive  furs,  on  the 
seat  beside  him,  and  who  yet,  he  told  me,  had  been 
travelling  incessantly  for  six  days.  He  talked  with 
incessant  volubility  in  the  French  and  English 


I   BEGIN   MY   JOURNEY.  21 

tongues ;  the  former  seemed  to  be  his  native  one  ; 
he  knew  everybody  and  everything  I  knew  ;  he  had 
started  the  journal  from  which  I  was  accredited, 
and  was  the  promoter  of  the  club  of  which  I  was 
an  unworthy  member ;  and  as  to  myself,  he  knew 
me  intimately,  so  he  said,  though  may  I  have  six . 
years'  penal  servitude  with  Lieutenant  Austin  late 
of  Birmingham  jail  as  Hulk  Inspector  if  I  had  ever 
spoken  to  him  before  in  my  life ;  and  a  great  many 
things  and  people  I  did  not  know.  He  seemed  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  every  musical  instrument 
and  musician,  from  the  piper  that  played  before 
Moses  to  the  Messrs.  Distin  and  their  Saxhorns.  I 
began  to  fancy  as  he  proceeded,  that  he  must  be 
that  renowned  and  eccentric  horn-player  and  mysti- 
ficateur,  who  travels  about  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
America,  Australia,  and  other  parts  of  the  world, 
accompanied  by  a  white  game-cock,  and  who  was 
once  mistaken  for  a  magician  by  the  Greeks  of  Syra 
through  his  marvellous  feat  of  blowing  soap-bubbles 
with  tobacco-smoke  inside  them.  I  was  in  error, 
however.  I  learnt  the  wondrous  creature's  name 
before  I  reached  Berlin ;  but  although  he  refrained 
from  binding  me  to  secrecy,  this  is  not  the  time  nor 
place  in  which  to  reveal  it. 

Ten  thirty  p.  M.,  a  wild  sweep  through  a  sandy 
plain  thinly  starred  with  lights  ;  then  thickening 
masses  of  human  habitations ;  then  brighter  corus- 
cations of  gas-lamps,  and — Berlin.  Here  I  am  re- 
ceived with  all  the  honours  of  war.  Two  grim 
guards  with  gleaming  bayonets  impress  me,  if  they 
do  not  awe  me,  on  the  platform,  as  the  carriage-door 


22  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

is  flung  open  ;  and  a  very  tall  and  fierce  police- 
officer  in  a  helmet  demands  my  passport.  I  observe 
that  the  continental  governments  always  keep  the 
policemen  with  the  longest  moustachioes,  the  largest 
bodies,  and  the  most  ferocious  general  aspect,  at  the 
.frontier  towns  and  railway  termini.  You  always 
see  the  elite  of  the  municipal  force,  the  prize  police- 
men, when  you  enter  a  foreign  country,  and  those  in 
power  have  a  decided  eye  to  effect.  Behold  me 
here,  exactly  half-way  in  my  expedition  Due  North 
—  which  is  not  due  north  by-the-by,  but  rather 
northeast. 

Behold  me,  come  post-haste  to  Berlin,  and  half 
my  journey  due  north  accomplished.  Now,  when 
the  northern  end  looms  in  sight,  I  find  myself 
brought  to  a  standstill.  This  is  the  twenty-seventh 
of  April,  and  the  flowers  in  England  must  be  look- 
ing out  their  summer  suits,  yet  here  I  am  literally 
frozen  up.  It  was  my  design,  on  quitting  London, 
to  proceed,  vi&  Berlin,  to  Stettin  in  Pomerania,  and 
there  to  take  the  first  steamer  to  St.  Petersburg. 
Here  is  my  fare,  sixty-two  doUars  in  greasy  Prussian 
notes — like  curl-papers  smoothed  out — here  is  my 
Foreign- Office  passport,  not  vise  yet  for  Russia,  but 
which  to-morrow  will  be ;  here  are  my  brains  and 
my  heart,  bounding,  yearning,  for  Muscovite  impres- 
sions ;  and  there,  at  Stettin-on-the-Oder,  is  the  Post- 
Dampfschiff  Preussischer-Adler  or  Fast  Mail-packet 
Prussian  Eagle.  What  prevents  the  combination  of 
these  things  carrying  me  right  away  to  Cronstadt  ? 
What  but  my  being  frozen  up  ?  What  but  the  ice 
in  the  Gulf  of  Finland? 


I   BEGIN   MY  JOURNEY.  23 

In  a  murky  office  in  Mark  Lane,  London,  where 
I  first  made  my  inquiries  into  Muscovite  matters, 
the  clerks  spoke  hopefully  of  the  northern  navigation 
being  perfectly  free  by  the  end  of  April.  In  Brussels, 
weather-wise  men,  bound  Russia-wards,  were  quite 
sanguine  as  to  the  first  day  of  May  being  first  open 
water.  But  in  Berlin,  people^  began  to  shake  their 
heads,  and  whisper  ugly  stories  about  the  ice ;  and 
many  advised  me  to  take  a  run  down  to  Leipzig 
and  Dresden,  and  see  the  Saxon  Switzerland ;  tell- 
ing me  significantly  that  I  would  have  ample  time 
to  explore  all  central  Germany  before  the  northern 
waters  were  ruffled  by  the  keel  even  of  a  cock-boat. 
There  was  a  little  band  of  Britons  purposing  for 
Petersburg  at  the  table  d'hote  of  the  Hotel  de  Russie, 
at  Berlin,  of  whom  I  had  the  advantage  to  make 
one ;  and  we  fed  ourselves  from  day  to  day  (after 
dinner)  with  fallacious  hopes  of  early  steamers.  A 
Roman  citizen  in  a  buff  waistcoat,  and  extensively 
interested  in  tallow,  (so  at  least  it  was  whispered, 
though  the  Fumden  Blad  said  merely  Shortsix, 
Kaufmann  aus  England,  and  was  silent  as  to  his 
specialty,)  was  perfectly  certain  that  a  steamboat 
would  start  from  Stockholm  for  Cronstadt  on  the 
fourth  of  May,  and  he  expressed  his  determination 
to  secure  a  passage  by  her  ;  but  as  Sweden  happens 
to  be  on  the  other  side  of  the  Baltic,  and  there  was 
no  bridge,  and  no  water  communication  yet  opened 
therewith,  the  Stockholm  steamer  was  a  thing  to  be 
looked  at  (in  lithography,  framed  and  glazed  in  the 
hall  of  the  hotel)  and  longed  for,  rather  than  em- 
barked in.  We  were  all  of  us  perpetually  haunted 


24  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

by  a  sort  of  phantom  steamer — a  very  flying  Russian 
— commanded,  I  presume,  by  Captain  Vanderdeck- 
enovitch,  whose  departure  some  one  had  seen  adver- 
tised in  an  unknown  newspaper.  This  spectral  craft 
was  reported  to  have  left  Hull  some  time  since — we 
all  agreed  that  the  passage-money  out  was  nine 
guineas,  inclusive  o£  provisions  of  the  very  best 
quality,  but  exclusive  of  wines,  liquors,  and  the 
steward's  fee,  and  she  was  to  call  (after  doubling 
the  cape,  I  presume)  at  Kiel,  Lubeck,  Copenhagen, 
Konigsberg ;  Jerusalem,  Madagascar,  and  North 
and  South  Amerikee,  for  aught  I  know.  To  find 
this  ghostly  bark,  an  impetuous  Englishman  —  a 
north  countryman  with  a  head  so  fiery  in  hue  that 
they  might  have  put  him  on  a  post  and  made  a 
lighthouse  of  him,  and  pendant  whiskers  like  car- 
riage rugs,  started  off  by  the  midnight  mail  to 
Hamburg.  He  came  back  in  three  days  and  a 
towering  rage,  saying  that  there  was  ice  even  in 
the  Elbe,  and  giving  us  to  understand  that  the  free 
cities  of  Hamburg,  Lubeck,  and  Bremen,  had  con- 
curred in  laughing  him  to  scorn  at  the  bare  mention 
of  a  steamer  due  north — yet  awhile  at  least.  By 
degrees  a  grim  certainty  broke  upon  us,  and  settled 
itself  convincingly  in  our  minds.  To  the  complexion 
of  the  Preussischer-Adler  we  must  come  ;  and  that 
Post-Dampfschiff  would  start  from  Stettin  on  Satur- 
day, the  seventeenth  of  May,  at  noon,  and  not  one 
day  or  hour  before. 

I  thought  the  three  long  weeks  would  never  have 
come  to  an  end.  I  might,  ha4  I  been  differently 
situated,  have  taken  my  fill  of  enjoyment  in  Berlin, 


I  BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  25 

and  spent  three  pleasant  weeks  there.  Unter  den 
Linden,  the  Thier- Garten,  Charlottenbourg,  Pots- 
dam, Krotts,  the  Tonhalle,  Sans  Souci,  and  Mon- 
bijou  (pronounced  Zang  Zouzy  and  Mongpichow) 
are  quite  sufficient  to  make  a  man  delectably  com- 
fortable on  the  spree  :  to  say  nothing  of  the  art 
treasure-stored  Museum,  Rauck's  statue  of  the  Great 
Frederic,  Kiss's  Amazon,  and  the  sumptuous  Opera- 
haus,  with  Johanna  Wagner  in  the  Tanhaiiser,  and 
Marie  Taglioni  in  Satanella.  But  they  were  all 
caviare  to  the  million  of  Prussian  blue  devils  which 
possessed  me.  I  felt  that  I  had  no  business  in  Ber- 
lin— that  I  had  no  right  to  applaud  Fraulein  Wag- 
ner— that  I  ought  to  reserve  my  kid-glove  reverbera- 
tions for  Mademoiselle  Bagdanoff :  that  every  walk 
I  took  Unter  den  Linden  was  so  many  paces  robbed 
from  the  Nevsky  Perspective,  and  that  every  sight  I 
took  at  the  King  of  Prussia  and  the  Princes  of  the 
House  of  Hohenzollern  was  a  fraud  on  my  liege  lit- 
erary masters,  the  Emperor  of  Russia  and  the  scions 
of  the  house  of  Romanoff. 

Conscience-stricken  as  I  felt,  though  void  of  guilt, 
I  had  my  consolations — few  and  spare,  but  grateful 
as  Esmeralda's  cup  to  the  thirst-tortured  Quasimodo. 
I  heard  the  Oberon  of  Karl  Maria  von  Weber  per- 
formed with  such  a  fervour  and  solemnity  of  sincer- 
ity, listened  to  with  such  rapt  attention  and  reverent 
love — drunk  up  by  a  thousand  greedy  ears,  bar  by 
bar,  note  by  note — from  the  first  delicious  horn- 
murmur  in  the  overture  to  the  last  crash  in  the 
triumphant  march,  in  the  finale,  that  I  began  at 
last  to  fancy  that  I  was  in  a  Cathedral  instead  of 


26  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

a  theatre,  and  half  expected  the  congregation — I 
mean  the  people — to  kneel  when  the  bell  rang  for 
the  fall  of  the  curtain,  and  the  brilliant  lamps  grew 
pale.  An  extra  gleam  of  consolation  was  imparted 
to  me,  too,  when  I  read  in  the  Schauspiel-zettel,  or 
play-bill,  the  printed  avowal  that  the  libretto  of  the 
opera  had  been  into  High  Dutch  rendered  from  the 
English  of  the  Herr-Poem-Konstruktor  J.  R.  Planche. 
Again  ;  I  saw  the  Faust  of  Wolfgang  von  Goethe — 
the  Faust  as  a  tragedy,  in  all  its  magnificent  and 
majestic  simplicity.  I  don't  think  I  clearly  compre- 
hended fifty  phrases  of  the  dialogue  ;  I  could  scarce- 
ly read  the  names  of  the  dramatis  personse  in  the 
play-bill ;  and  yet  I  would  not  have  missed  that  per- 
formance for  a  pile  of  ducats  ;  nor  shall  I  ever  forget 
the  actor  who  played  Mephistopheles.  His  name  is 
a  shadow  to  me  now ;  the  biting  wit,  the  searching 
philosophy,  the  scathing  satire,  in  his  speech  were 
wellnigh  Greek  to  me ;  but  the  hood,  the  gait,  the 
gestures,  the  devil's  grin,  the  vibrating  voice,  the  red 
cock's  feather,  the  long  peaked  shoes,  the  sardoni- 
cally up-turned  moustache,  will  never  be  erased  from 
my  mind,  and  will  stand  me  in  good  stead  for  com- 
mentaries when  (in  the  week  of  the  three  Thursdays, 
I  suppose)  I  take  heart  of  grace  and  sit  down  to 
study  the  giant  of  Weimar's  masterpiece  in  the 
original.  There  was  a  pretty,  blue-eyed,  rosy-lipped 
Marguerite,  whose  hair  had  a  golden  sheen  perfectly 
wondrous ;  and  Faust  would  have  been  a  senseless 
stock  not  to  have  fallen  in  love  with  her  ;  but,  alas  ! 
she  was  too  fat,  and  looked  as  if  she  ate  too  much  ; 
and  when  she  wept  for  Faust  gave  me  far  more  the 


I   BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  27 

impression  that  she  was  crying  because,  like  the 
ebony  patriarch  Tucker,  familiarly  hight  Dan,  she 
was  too  late  for  her  supper.  Still,  I  came  away 
from  Faust  almost  happy. 

There  might,  perchance,  at  other  times  be  a  surly 
pleasure  in  the  discovery  that  Berlin  gloves  are  ap- 
parently unknown  at  Berlin — even  as  there  are  no 
French  rolls  in  Paris — and  that  Berlin  wool  is  very 
little  sought  after.  There  might  have  been  some 
advantage  gained  to  science  by  an  attempt  to  an- 
alyze the  peculiar  smell  of  the  capital  of  Prussia, 
which,  to  uninitiated  noses,  seems  compounded  of 
volatile  essence  of  Cologne,  (not  the  eau,  but  the 
streets  thereof,)  multiplied  by  sewer,  plus  cesspool, 
plus  Grande  Rue  de  Pera,  plus  Rue  de  la  Tixeran- 
derie  after  a  shower  of  rain,  plus  port  of  Marseilles 
at  any  time,  plus  London  eating-house,  plus  Vaux- 
hall  bone-boiling  establishment,  plus  tallow  factory, 
plus  low  lodging-house  in  Whitechapel,  plus  dissect- 
ing-rooms, plus  the  "  gruel  thick  and  slab  "  of  Mac- 
beth's  witches  when  it  began  to  cool.*  There  might 
have  been  a  temporary  relief  in  expatiating  on  the 
geological  curiosities  of  Berlin,  the  foot-lacerating 
pavement,  and  the  Sahara-like  sandy  plain  in  which 
the  city  is  situate.  There  might  have  been  a  tem- 
porary excitement,  disagreeable  but  salubrious,  in 
losing,  as  I  did,  half  my  store  of  Prussian  notes  in 
a  cab,  and  cooling  my  heels  for  three  successive 
days  at  the  Police  Presidium  in  frantically-fruitless 

*  It  is  doubtful  whether  this  description,  written  nearly  two 
years  ago,  would  not  now  more  aptly  apply  to  Father  Thames. 


28  A  JOUllNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

inquiries  (in  very  scanty  German)  after  my  departed 
treasure — but  there  wasn't  ;  no,  not  one  atom. 
Though  the  Hotel  de  Russie  boasted  as  savoury  a 
table-d'hote  as  one  would  wish  to  find,  likewise 
Rhine  wine  exhilarating  to  the  palate  and  soothing 
to  the  soul,  I  began  to  loathe  my  food  and  drink.  I 
longed  for  Russian  caviare  and  Russian  vodki.  I 
came  abroad  to  eat  candles  and  drink  train-oil — or, 
at  least,  the  equivalent  for  that  which  is  popularly 
supposed  to  form  the  favourite  food  of  our  late  ene- 
mies— and  not  to  feast  on  Bisque  soup  and  supreme 
de  volatile.  Three  weeks  !  they  seemed  an  eternity. 

The  maestro  whom  I  met  at  Potsdam,  went  back 
to  Cologne  cheerfully ;  he  was  not  bound  for  the 
land  of  the  Russ  ;  and,  having  accomplished  the  ob- 
ject of  his  mission — which  I  imagine  to  have  been 
the  engagement  of  a  few  hundred  fiddlers — departed 
in  a  droschky,  his  straw-coloured  kids  gleaming  in 
the  sunshine,  and  wishing  me  joy  of  my  journey  to 
St.  Petersburg.  Shall  I  ever  get  there,  I  wonder? 
The  Englishman,  who  was  a  man  of  the  world, 
didn't  come  back.  He  of  the  red  head  (Mr.  Eddy- 
stone  I  christened  him  from  his  beacon-like  hair)  took 
rail  for  Konigsberg,  to  see  if  there  was  anything  in 
the  steam-vessel  line  to  be  done  there,  and  the  buff 
waistcoat,  who  was  commercially  interested  in  tal- 
low, boldly  announced  his  determination  not  to 
stand  it  any  longer,  but  to  be  off  to  St.  Petersburg 
overland. 

Overland !  and  why  could  not  I  also  go  overland  ? 
The  railway,  I  reasoned,  will  take  me  as  far  as  this 
same  Konigsberg,  and  proceeding  thence  by  way  of 


I   BEGIN  MY   JOURNEY.  29 

Tilsit,  Tauroggen,  Mittau,  Riga,  and  Lake  Tschudi, 
I  can  reach  the  much-desired  Petropolis.  There  is 
the  malle-poste,  or  diligence  ;  there  is  the  extra-post ; 
there  is  the  private  kibitka,  which  I  can  purchase, 
or  hire,  and  horse  at  my  own  charges  from  stage  to 
stage.  The  journey  should  properly  occupy  ABOUT 
six  days.  ABOUT  !  but  a  wary  and  bronzed  queen's 
messenger,  who  converses  with  me  (he  ought  to 
know  something,  for  he  is  on  the  half-pay  of  the 
dragoons,  is  a  lord's  nephew  and  the  cousin  of  a 
secretary  of  state,  spent  fifty  thousand  pounds  be- 
fore he  was  five-and-twenty,  and  is  now  ceaselessly 
wandering  up  and  down  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
with  a  red  dispatch-box,  six  hundred  a-year,  and  his 
expenses  paid) — the  queen's  messenger,  bronzed  and 
wary,  shakes  his  head  ominously.  When  the  winter 
breaks  up  in  Russia,  he  remarks,  the  roads  break  up 
too,  and  the  travellers  break  down.  He  has  often 
been  overland  himself,  perforce,  (where  hasn't  he 
been  ?)  in  winter ;  and  he  has  such  marrow-freezing 
stories  to  tell  (all  in  a  cool,  jaunty,  mess-room-soft- 
ened-by-experience  manner,)  of  incessant  travelling 
by  day  and  night,  of  roads  made  up  of  morasses, 
sand-hills,  and  deep  gullies,  of  drunken  drivers,  of 
infamous  post-houses,  swarming  with  all  the  plagues 
of  Egypt,  naturalized  Russian  subjects;  of  atro- 
ciously extortionate  Jew  postmasters ;  of  horses — 
rum  ones  to  look  at,  and  rummer,  or  worse  ones,  to 
go ;  of  frequent  stoppages  for  hours  together ;  of  an 
absolute  dearth  of  anything  wholesome  to  eat  or 
drink,  save  bread  and  tea.  He  enlarges  so  much  on 
the  bruisings,  bumpings,  joltings,  and  dislocations  to 


30  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

which  the  unfortunate  victim  of  the  nominally  six, 
but  more  frequently  twelve  days'  overland  route  is 
subject,  that  I  bid  the  project  avaunt  like  an  ugly 
phantom,  and,  laying  it  in  the  Baltic  Sea,  determine 
to  weather  out  the  time  as  well  as  I  can,  till  the  sev- 
enteenth. 

I  can't  stop  any  longer  in  Berlin,  however,  that  is 
certain.  So  I  drive  out  of  the  Oraneinberg  Gate, 
and  cast  myself  into  a  railway  carriage,  which,  in 
its  turn,  casts  me  out  at  Stettin-on-the-Oder,  eighty- 
four  miles  distant.  And  on  the  banks  of  that  fear- 
some River  Oder  I  pass  May -day.  In  the  Oder,  too, 
I  find  the  steamer  in  which,  at  some  far  remote  pe- 
riod of  my  existence,  I  suppose  I  am  to  occupy  a 
berth.  I  find  the  "  Preussischer  Adler ; "  but  woe  is 
me !  she  has  taken  to  her  bed  in  a  graving-dock, 
and  is  a  pitiable  sight  to  see.  There  being  some- 
thing the  matter  with  her  boilers,  they  have  dismast- 
ed her,  leaving  her  nothing  but  clumsy  stumps  like 
wooden  legs.  They  are  scraping  her  all  over,  for 
some  cutaneous  disorder  with  which  she  is  afflicted , 
I  presume,  and  they  are  recoppering  her  bottom, — 
an  operation  which  German  shipwrights  appear  to 
me  to  perform  with  gum-arabic,  Dutch  metal,  and 
a  camel's-hair  pencil.  Altogether  the  "  Prussian 
Eagle  "  looks  such  a  woe-begone,  moulting,  tailless, 
broken-beaked  bird,  and  so  very  unlike  going  to 
Cronstadt,  that  I  flee  from  her  in  dismay ;  and 
boarding  the  "  Geyser,"  which  is  trim,  taut,  and 
double-funnelled,  steam  swiftly  through  the  Haf  See 
to  Swinemunde,  and  then  across  the  East  Sea  to 
Copenhagen. 


I   BEGIN   MY  JOURNEY.  31 

Plenty  of  time  (miserere  me  /)  to  see  all  that  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  chief  city  of  Denmark ;  to  take  the 
English  company's  railway  to  Roeskilde ;  to  cross 
over  to  Malmoe  in  Sweden ;  to  go  back  to  Stettin — 
to  the  devil,  I  think,  if  this  lasts  much  longer. 
There  is  a  horrible  persuasion  forcing  itself  upon  me 
now — that  I  live  in  Berlin :  that  my  goal  is  there. 
Back  to  Berlin  I  go.  Letters  are  waiting  for  me. 
People  I  didn't  know  from  Adam  a  month  ago,  and 
don't  care  a  silbergroschen  for,  offer  to  kiss  me  on 
both  cheeks,  and  welcome  me  home.  I  suppose  by 
this  time  I  am  a  Prussian  subject,  and  shall  have  to 
serve  in  the  landwehr.  Between  that  and  blowing 
one's  brains  out  there  is  not  much  difference. 

I  go  back  to  Stettin,  where  I  have  a  touch  of  the 
overland  longing  again  (it  is  now  the  tenth  of  May), 
and  a  Jewish  gentleman  with  an  apple-green  gabar- 
dine, lined  with  cat-skin,  and  a  beard  so  ragged  and 
torn,  that  I  am  led  to  surmise  that  he  has  himself 
despoiled  the  cats  of  their  furry  robes,  and  has  suf- 
fered severely  in  the  contest,  is  exceedingly  anxious 
(he  nosed  me  in  the  hotel  lobby  as  an  Englishman, 
within  an  hour  of  my  arrival)  that  I  should  purchase 
a  kibitka  he  has  to  sell.  He  only  wants  fifty  thalers 
for  it ;  it  is  a  splendid  kibitka,  he  says : — "  sehr 
hubsch,  schreckllch  !  wunderschon  " — so  I  go  to  look 
at  it;  for  I  feel  just  in  the  sort  of  mood  to  buy  a 
kibitka,  or  an  elephant,  a  diving-bell,  a  mangle,  an 
organ  with  an  insane  monkey  to  grind  it,  and  throw 
myself  into  the  Oder  immediately  afterwards.  I 
look  at  the  kibitka,  which  I  am  to  horse  from  stage 
to  stage,  and  I  deserve  to  be  horsed  myself  if  I  buy 


32  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

it,  so  lamentable  an  old  shandrydan  is  it.  I  quarrel 
with  the  Jew  in  the  cat-skins  on  the  subject,  who 
calls  me  lord,  and  sheds  tears.  Finding  that  I  am 
determined  not  to  throw  away  my  thalers  on  his 
kibitka,  he,  with  the  elasticity  in  commercial  trans- 
actions common  to  his  nation,  proposes  that  I  should 
become  the  possessor  of  a  splendid  dressing-case 
with  silver  mountings ;  but  on  my  remaining  proof 
against  this  temptation,  as  well  as  against  that  of  a 
stock  of  prime  Hungarian  tobacco,  which  is  to  be 
sold  for  a  mere  song,  he  changes  blithely  from  seller 
to  buyer,  and  generously  offers  to  purchase  at  advan- 
tageous rates,  and  for  ready  money,  any  portion  of 
my  wardrobe  I  may  consider  superfluous.  He  is 
not  in  the  least  offended  when  I  bid  him  go  hang,  in 
the  English  language,  and  walk  away  moodily — 
calling  after  me  in  cheerful  accents  (by  the  title  of 
Well-born  Great  British  Sir)  that  he  has  a  fine 
English  bull-pup  to  dispose  of,  dirt-cheap. 

After  this,  I  have  another  look  at  the  "  Preussis- 
cher  Adler,"  which,  by  this  time,  has  been  turned, 
for  coppering  purposes,  nearly  keel  upwards,  and 
looks  as  if  she  had  abandoned  herself  to  despair,  as 
I  have.  Walk  the  streets  of  Stettin  I  dare  not,  for 
I  am  pursued  by  the  hideous  spectre  of  Thomas  Til- 
der  aus  Tyrol,  of  whom  more  anon.  Yes,  Thomas, 
in  these  pages  shall  you,  like  noxious  bat  on  barn- 
door, be  spread  out  with  nails  of  type !  And,  as  for 
Berlin,  I  am  ashamed  to  show  my  face  there  again. 
The  very  clerks  at  the  station  seem  to  think  it  quite 
time  for  me  to  be  in  Russia ;  and  I  am  afraid  the 
head  waiter  at  the  Hotel  de  Russie  took  it  very  ill 


I   BEGIN   MY   JOURNEY.  33 

that  I  came  back  last  time.  Yet  I  journey  there, 
and  back,  and  there  again ;  and  in  one  of  my  jour- 
neys to  Berlin  I  have  my  passport  made  good  for 
Russia.  The  process  is  a  solemn  and  intricate  one, 
and  merits  a  few  words  of  notice.  There  is  plenty 
of  time ;  they  are  hammering  away  at  the  Prussian 
Eagle's  boilers  yet.  First,  with  great  fear  and  trem- 
bling, I  go  to  the  hotel  of  the  Russian  embassy, 
which  is  a  tremendous  mansion,  as  big  as  a  castle, 
under  the  Linden.  I  have  borne  the  majority  of 
Foreign  Legations  abroad  with  tolerable  equanim- 
ity ;  but  I  am  quite  overcome  here  by  the  grandeur, 
and  the  double  eagle  over  the  gate,  and  the  vastness 
of  the  court-yard,  and  the  odour  of  a  diplomatic  din- 
ner, which  is  being  cooked  (probably  in  stew-pans 
of  gold  from  the  Ural  mountains) ;  but  I  am  espe- 
cially awed  by  a  house-porter,  or  Suisse,  of  gigantic 
stature,  possibly  the  largest  Suisse  that  ever  human 
ambassador  possessed.  He  is  not  exactly  like  a 
beadle,  nor  a  drum-major,  nor  an  archbishop,  (he 
wears  a  gold-embroidered  alb)  nor  a  field-marshal, 
nor  garter  king-at-arms,  nor  my  lord  on  May-day, 
but  is  something  between  all  these  functionaries  in 
appearance.  He  has  a  long  gilt-headed  pole  in  his 
hand,  much  more  like  the  "  mast  of  some  tall  am- 
miral,"  than  a  Christian  staff;  and  when  I  ask  him 
the  way  to  the  passport-office,  he  magnanimously 
refrains  from  ejaculating  anything  about  Fee-fo- 
Fum,  or  smelling  the  blood  of  an  Englishman  ;  and, 
instead  of  eating  me  up  alive  on  the  spot,  or  grind- 
ing my  bones  to  make  his  bread,  he  tells  me,  in  a 
deep  bass  voice,  to  enter  the  second  door  on  the  left 
2* 


34  A   JOURNEY   DUE   XORTJI. 

through  the  court-yard,  and  mount  two  pair  of  stairs. 
Here,  in  but  a  seedy  little  bureau  for  so  grand  a 
mansion,  I  find  a  little  round  old  gentleman  in  a 
grey  flannel  dressing-gown  and  a  skull-cap,  who 
looks  more  like  my  Uncle  Toby  than  a  Russian, 
offers  me  snuff  from  his  box,  (a  present  from  the 
czar,  perhaps,)  and  courteously  desires  to  know 
what  he  can  do  for  me.  I  explain  my  errand ;  upon 
which  the  little  old  gentleman  shakes  his  head  with 
Burleigh-like  sagacity,  as  if  granting  a  vise  to  a 
passport  were  no  light  matter,  and,  securing  my 
papers,  begs  me  to  call  again  at  three  o'clock  the 
following  day.  I  call  again  at  the  appointed  time, 
when  it  appears  that  the  little  old  gentleman — or,  at 
least,  his  diplomatic  chiefs — have  no  orders,  as  yet, 
to  admit  English  subjects  into  Russia ;  so  there  are 
telegraphic  messages  to  be  sent  to  Warsaw,  where 
Count  Gortschakoff  is,  and  who  most  courteously 
telegraphs  back,  "  By  all  means : "  *  and  there  are 
papers  to  be  signed,  and  declarations  to  be  made, 
and  there  is  the  deuce  and  all^to  pay.  When  all 
these  formalities  have  been  satisfactorily  gone 
through,  I  begin  to  think  it  pretty  nearly  time  for 
the  passport  to  be  ready,  and  ask  for  it;  but  the 

*  In  that  meritorious  philo-Russian  organ,  the  Nord,  I  saw,  a 
few  days  since,  an  anecdote,  apropos  of  telegraphic  despatches, 
which,  I  think,  will  bear  translation.  Lord  Granville,  according 
to  the  Nord,  had  commissioned  one  Sir  Acton  to  engage  a  house 
at  Moscow  for  hitn.  Sir  Acton  telegraphs  to  Lord  Granville  to 
know  whether  the  terms  demanded  for  the  house  will  suit  his 
lordship,  whereupon  Lord  Granville  telegraphs  back,  "  Yes,  my 
dear." 


I   BEGIN   MY   JOURNEY. 

little  old  gentleman,  shaking  that  head  of  his  with 
much  suavity,  suggests  to-morrow  at  a  quarter  to 
four.  The  chief  secretary  of  legation,  he  says,  is  at 
Charlottenbourg,  dining  with  the  king,  and  without 
his  signature  the  passport  is  not  valid.  I  call  again  ; 
but  I  suppose  the  secretary  must  be  taking  tea  with 
some  other  member  of  the  royal  family,  for  no  pass- 
port do  I  receive,  and  another  appointment  is  made. 
This  time  I  see  my  passport  bodily,  lying  on  a  table, 
and  by  the  amount  of  Russian  hieroglyphics  and 
double-eagle  stamps  covering  every  available  blank 
space  on  its  surface,  it  ought  surely,  to  my  mind,  to 
be  good  from  Revel  to  Tobolsk.  But  it  is  noch  nicht 
fertig — not  yet  ready — the  little  old  gentleman  says. 
He  speaks  nothing  but  German — so,  at  least,  he 
blandly  declares ;  yet  I  notice  that  he  pricks  his  ears 
up  sharply,  and  that  his  eyes  twinkle,  when  an  irate 
Frenchman,  whose  errand  is  the  same  as  mine  (only 
he  has  been  waiting  ten  days)  denounces  the  Rus- 
sians, in  his  native  tongue,  as  a  nation  de  barbares. 
I  begin  myself  to  get  exceedingly  cross,  and  impa- 
tient to  know  when  I  am  to  have  the  precious  docu- 
ment ;  whereupon  the  little  old  gentleman  looks  at 
me  curiously,  as  if  he  didn't  quite  understand  what 
I  meant,  or  perhaps  as  if  I  didn't  quite  understand 
his  meaning. 

"  Where  do  you  live  in  Berlin  ?  "  he  asks,  sud- 
denly. 

I  tell  him  that  I  am  stopping  at  the  Hotel  de 
Russie,  in  which  with  a  smile  of  five-hundred-diplo- 
matist power,  he  makes  me  a  bow,  and  tells  me  he 
will  have  the  honour  of  bringing  me  the  passport 


36  .  A    JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

this  present  evening,  at  six  o'clock.  I  ask  if  there  is 
any  charge  for  the  vise;  but,  with  another  smile  that 
would  set  a  sphynx  up  in  business  on  the  spot,  so 
inscrutable  is  it,  he  assures  me  that  the  vise  is  Gra- 
tis, gratis,  and  bows  me  out.  I  go  home  to  dinner, 
and  discourse  to  Mr.  Erenreich  on  my  passport  trib- 
ulations. 

"  When  he  comes  this  evening,"  says  this  worthy 
landlord,  "  you  had  better  give  him  a  thaler  at  once. 
Otherwise  you  may  perhaps  find  that  he  has  left  the 
passport  'at  the  Legation,  and  that  it  is  impossible 
to  obtain  it  before  to-morrow." 

The  little  old  gentleman  is  punctual  to  his  ap- 
pointment, and  I  no  sooner  catch  sight  of  him  in  the 
darkened  salle  a  manger,  than  I  hasten  to  slip  the 
necessary  note  into  his  hand.  He  makes  me  a  pro- 
fusion of  bows,  and  gives  me  my  passport, — gutt 
nach  Russland  as  he  expresses  it.  "  Gutt  nach  Russ- 
land"  When  I  spread  the  passport  on  the  table, 
and  recall  the  little  old  gentleman's  words,  I  can't 
help  feeling  somewhat  of  a  thrill.  "  Gutt  nach  Russ- 
land"— here  are  the  double  eagles,  and  the  para- 
graphs scrawled  in  unknown  characters,  and  my 
name  (I  presume)  in  such  an  etymological  disguise 
that  my  wisest  child,  had  I  one,  would  despair  of 
recognizing  his  own  father  in  it.  Yet  the  expen- 
diture of  three  shillings  has  made  me  "  good  for 
Russia."  But  yesterday  there  was  a  gulf  of  blood 
and  fire,  and  the  thunder  of  a  thousand  guns  be- 
tween England  and  Russia!  the  Ultima  Thule  of 
St.  Petersburg  was  as  inaccessible  to  an  English- 
man as  Mecca  or  Japan,  and  now,  lo,  a  scrap  of  a 


I   BEGIN  MY  JOURNEY.  37 

stamped  paper  and  a  few  pieces  of  gold  will  carry 
me  through  the  narrow  channel,  that,  ten  months 
ago,  the  British  government  would  have  given  mil- 
lions to  be  able  to  float  one  gun-boat  on. 

"  Itsch  chost  von  Daler"  says  the  commissionnaire 
with  the  umbrella.  What  he  should  want  a  Prus- 
sian dollar  from  me  for,  or  why,  indeed,  he  should 
exact  any  thing,  passes  my  comprehension.  He 
walked  into  my  bedroom  at  the  Drei  Kronen  this 
morning,  at  a  dreadfully  early  hour,  with  his  hat  on, 
and  his  umbrella  (a  dull  crimson  in  hue)  under  his 
arm.  He  bade  me  good  morning  in  a  cavalier  man- 
ner, and  informed  me  that  he  was  the  commission- 
naire, to  which  I  retorted  that  he  might  be  the  Pope, 
but  that  I  wanted  none  of  his  company.  The  boots 
was  packing  my  luggage,  and  he  superintended  the 
process  with  a  serenely  patronizing  air,  thinking 
possibly,  that  on  the  principle  that  "  /'  ceil  du  maitre 
engraisse  le  cheval"  it  is  the  eye  of  the  commis- 
sionnaire that  cords  the  trunks.  Finding  me  indis- 
posed for  conversation  (I  had  taken  some  genuine 
Russian  caviare  for  breakfast  with  a  view  of  accli- 
matizing myself  early,  and  was  dreadfully  sick),  he 
took  himself  and  umbrella  off  to  another  apartment, 
and  the  boots  expressed  his  opinion  to  me  (in  strict 
confidence)  that  he,  the  commissionnaire,  was  a  spitz- 
bube.  This  is  all  he  has  done  for  me,  and  now  he 
has  the  conscience  to  come  to  me  and  tell  me  that 
his  charges  are  "  chost  von  Daler"  He  is  author- 
ized, it  appears,  by  somebody  who  does  not  pay  the 
thalers  himself,  to  extort  them  from  other  people; 
and  he  points,  with  conscious  pride,  to  some  tar- 


38  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

nished  buttons  on  his  waistcoat  on  which  the  Rus- 
sian eagle  is  manifest. 

Why  do  I  give  the  commissionnaire  the  thaler  he 
demands,  and  to  which  he  has  no  sort  of  right  ? 
Why  do  I  feel  inclined  to  give  two,  three  dollars,  to 
invite  him  to  partake  of  schnapps,  to  cast  myself  on 
his  neck,  and  assure  him  that  I  love  him  as  a 
brother  ?  Why,  because  to-day  is  Saturday,  the 
seventeenth  of  May,  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon, 
and  I  am  standing  on  the  deck — the  quarter-deck, 
ye  gods ! — of  the  "  Preussischer  Adler,"  which  good 
pyroscaphe  has  got  her  steam  up  to  a  maddening 
extent,  and  in  another  hour's  time  will  leave  the 
harbour  of  Stettin  for  Cronstadt. 

New  tail-feathers,  new  wing-feathers,  new  beak, 
new  claws,  has  the  "  Preussischer  Adler."  A  brave 
bird.  There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  her  boilers 
now,  her  masts  are  tapering,  her  decks  snow-white, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  that  her  copper  glistens  like 
burnished  gold,  and  that  the  mermaids  in  the  Baltic 
will  be  tempted  to  purloin  little  bits  of  the  shining 
metal  to  deck  their  weedy  tresses  withal.  A  bran 
new  flag  of  creamy  tinge  floats  at  her  stern,  and  on 
it  is  depicted  with  smart  plumage,  and  beak  and 
claws  of  gold,  an  eagle  of  gigantic  dimensions. 
And  this  is  the  last  eagle  with  one  head  that  I  shall 
see  on  this  side  Jordan. 

Every  thing  seems  to  be  new  on  board.  The 
saloon  is  gorgeous  in  crimson  velvet,  and  mirrors, 
and  mahogany  and  gold.  There  are  the  cleanest  of 
sheets,  the  rosiest  of  counterpanes,  the  most  coquet- 
tish of  chintz  curtains  to  the  berths.  All  the  crock- 


I   BEGIN  MT  JOURNEY.  39 

ery  is  new.  All  the  knives  and  forks  are  new  ;  and 
though  I  discover  afterwards  that  they  won't  cut, 
they  are  delightfully  shiny.  There  is  a  library  of 
new  books  in  a  new  rosewood  case,  and  there  is  a 
new  cabinet  piano,  tuned  up  to  nautical-concert 
pitch,  and  whose  keys  when  struck  clang  as  sharply 
as  the  tongue  of  an  American  steamboat  clerk.  The 
stewards,  of  whom  there  are  a  goodly  number,  are 
all  clad  in  glossy  new  uniforms  of  a  fancy  naval 
cut,  and  look  like  midshipmen  at  a  Vauxhall  mas- 
querade. There  is  a  spacious  galley  for  cooking 
purposes,  full  of  the  brightest  cooking  utensils ;  a 
titillating  odour  issues  therefrom,  and  there  are  four 
cooks,  yea  four,  all  in  professional  white.  One  has 
an,JmPerial  and  gold  watch-chain,  one  is  flirting 
with  the  stewardess,  (who  is  young,  pretty,  flounced, 
and  wears  her  hair  after  the  manner  of  the  Empress 
Eugenie,)  a  third  is  smoking  a  paper  cigarette,  (quite 
the  gentleman,)  while  the  last,  reclining  in  a  grove 
of  stewpans,  is  studying  attentively  a  handsomely- 
bound  book.  What  can  it  be  ?  Newton's  Prin- 
cipia,  Victor  Hugo's  Contemplations,  the  Cuisinier 
Royal,  or  the  Polite  Letter-writer?  "The  Preus- 
sischer  Adler,"  be  it  known,  like  her  sister  vessel  the 
Vladimir,  is  an  intensely-aristocratic  boat.  Both 
are  commanded  by  officers  respectively  of  the  Prus- 
sian (!)  and  Russian  (! !)  navies.  The  fare  by  the 
Prussian  Eagle  is  enormously  high  ;  nine  guineas 
for  a  sixty  hours'  passage.  On  payment  of  this  ex- 
orbitant honorarium  she  will  carry  such  humble 
passengers  as  myself ;  but  the  ordinary  travellers  per 
"  Preussischer  Adler "  are  princes  of  the  empire, 


40  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

grand-dukes,  arch-electors,  general-lieutenants,  am- 
bassadors, senators,  councillors  of  state.  And  as  for 
ladies — tenez  ! — the  best  edition  of  Almack's  Re- 
visited is  to  be  found  on  board  a  Stettin  steamboat. 
I  start  at  the  wrong  end  of  the  season  to  travel  with 
the  grandees,  however.  For  this  being  the  com- 
mencement of  the  navigation  and  of  PEACE  besides, 
the  Russian  aristocracy  are  all  hurrying  away  from 
St.  Petersburg  as  fast  as  ever  they  can  obtain  pass- 
ports. The  Vladimir,  they  tell  me,  has  all  her 
berths  engaged  up  to  the  middle  of  July  next,  and 
the  Prussian  Eagle  is  in  equal  demand. 

I  should  perhaps  be  more  unexceptionably  satis- 
fied with  the  Adler's  arrangements,  if  her  crew 
would  not  persist  in  wearing  moustaches  and  Hes- 
sian boots  with  the  tassels  cut  off.  It  is  not  nau- 
tical. A  boatswain,  too,  with  stripes  down  his 
trousers,  is  to  me  an  anomaly.  I  must  dissent,  too, 
from  the  system  of  stowing  passengers'  luggage  per 
"  Preussischer  Adler."  The  manner  of  it  appears  to 
be  this :  a  stalwart  porter,  balancing  a  heavy  trunk 
on  his  shoulder,  advances  along  the  plank  which 
leads  from  the  wharf  to  the  ship's  side.  He  ad- 
vances jauntily,  as  though  he  were  not  unaccus- 
tomed to  dance  a  coranto.  Arrived  at  the  brink  of 
the  abyss,  he  stops,  expectorates,  bandies  a  joke  in 
High  Dutch  with  a  compatriot  who  is  mending  his 
trousers  in  an  adjacent  barge,  and  bending  slightly, 
pitches  the  trunk  head  foremost  into  the  hold. 

There  is,  I  need  scarcely  say,  a  tremendous  fuss 
and  to-do  with  papers  and  policemen  before  we  start, 
calling  over  names,  verification  or  legitimation  of 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      41 

passports,  as  it  is  called  by  the  Russian  consul,  et 
cetera,  et  cetera ;  but  I  will  say  this,  in  honour  of 
the  "  Preussischer  Adler's  "  punctuality,  that  as  the 
clock  strikes  noon  we  cast  off  from  our  moorings, 
and  steam  away  through  the  narrow  Oder.  At 
Swinemunde  I  see  the  last  of  Prussia ;  henceforth  I 
must  be  of  Russia  and  Russian. 


II. 

I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE. 

THE  feeling  may  be  one  of  pure  cockneyism,  as 
puerile  as  when  one  sees  a  ship  on  the  sea  for  the 
first  time,  but  I  cannot  help  it ;  I  have  a  pleasure, 
almost  infantine,  when  I  remind  myself  that  I  am 
no  longer  performing  a  trite  steamboat  voyage  on 
the  Thames,  the  Seine,  the  Rhine,  the  Scheldt,  or 
the  Straits  of  Dover,  but  that  I  am  in  verity  jour- 
neying on  the  bosom  of  the  Baltic;  that  we  have 
left  the  coast  of  Denmark  far  behind ;  that  that  low 
long  strip  of  land  yonder  cingling  the  horizon  is  the 
Swedish  island  of  Gothland,  and  that,  by  to-morrow 
at  daybreak,  we  may  expect  to  enter  the  Gulf  of 
Finland. 

Dear  reader,  if  you  are,  as  I  hope,  a  lover  of  the 
story-books,  would  not  your  heart  sing,  and  your 
soul  be  gladdened — would  not  you  clap  your  hands 


42  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

for  joy — ay,  at  fifty  years  of  age,  and  in  High 
Change,  if  you  were  to  be  told  some  fine  morning 
that  the  story-books  had  come  True,  every  one  of 
them  ?  That  a  livery-stable  keeper's  horse  in  Barbi- 
can had  that  morning  put  out  the  eye  of  a  calender, 
son  of  a  king,  with  a  whisk  of  his  tail;  that  Mr. 
Mitchell,  of  the  Zoological  Society,  had  just  re- 
ceived a  fine  roc  per  Peninsular  and  Oriental  Com- 
pany's steamer;  that  there  were  excursions  every 
day  from  the  Waterloo  station  to  the  Valley  of 
Diamonds ;  that  Mr.  Farrance  of  Spring  Garden 
(supposing  that  eminent  pastry  cooking  firm  to  have 
an  individual  entity)  had  been  sentenced  to  death 
for  making  cream  tarts  without  pepper,  but  had  been 
respited  on  the  discovery  that  he  was  the  long-lost 
prince  Moureddin  Hassan  ;  that  several  giants  had 
been  slain  in  Wales  by  Lieutenant-general  Jack ; 
that  the  Forty  Thieves  were  to  be  tried  at  the  next 
session  of  the  Central  Criminal  Court ;  that  a  genii 
had  issued  from  the  smoke  of  a  saucepan  at  Mr. 
Simpson's  fish  ordinary  in  Billingsgate ;  that  the 
Prince  of  Wales  had  awakened  a  beautiful  princess, 
who  had  been  asleep,  with  all  her  household,  in  an 
enchanted  palace  in  some  woods  and  forests  in  the 
Home  Park,  Windsor;  and  that  a  dwarfish  gentle- 
man, by  the  name  of  Rumpelstiltskin,  had  lately  had 
an  audience  of  her  most  gracious  Majesty,  and 
boldly  demanded  the  last  of  the  royal  babies  as  a 
reward  for  his  services  in  cutting  the  Koh-i-noor 
diamond?  Who  would  not  forego  a  Guildhall  ban- 
quet for  the  pleasure  of  a  genuine  Barmecide  feast  ? 
who  would  not  take  an  express  train  to  Wantley,  if 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      43 

he  could  be  certain  that  the  real  original  dragon, 
who  swallowed  up  the  churches,  and  the  cows,  and 
the  people,  was  to  be  seen  alive  there  ?  When  I 
was  a  little  lad,  the  maps  were  my  story-books. 
The  big  marble-paper  covered  atlas,  only  to  be 
thumbed  on  high  days  and  holidays,  had  greater 
charms  for  me  than  even  Fox's  Martyrs  or  the 
Seven  Champions.  With  this  atlas  and  a  paunchy 
volume  with  a  piecrust  cover  (was  it  Brookes'  or 
Maunder's  Gazetteer  ?)  what  romances  I  wove ! 
what  poems  I  imagined !  what  castles  in  the  air  I 
built!  what  household  words  I  made  of  foreign 
cities!  what  subtle  knowledge  I  had  of  the  three 
Arabias, — Arabia  Petra,  Arabia  Deserta,  and  Arabia 
Felix !  How  I  longed  for  the  time  when  I  should 
be  big  enough  to  go  to  Spain  (shall  I  ever  be  big 
enough  to  make  that  journey,  I  wonder?) — what 
doughty  projects  I  formed  against  the  day  when  I 
should  be  enabled  to  travel  on  an  elephant  in  Ben- 
gal, and  a  reindeer  in  Lapland,  and  a  mule  in  the 
Pyrenees,  and  an  ostrich  in  Kabylia,  and  a  crocodile 
in  Nubia,  like  Mr.  Watertown !  But  my  special 
story-book  was  that  vast  patch  on  the  map  of  Eu- 
rope marked  Russia.  In  Europe,  quotha!  did  not 
Russia  stretch  far,  far  into  Asia,  and  farther  still  into 
America  ?  I  never  was  satiated  with  this  part  of 
the  atlas.  There  was  perpetual  winter  in  Russia, 
of  course.  The  only  means  of  travelling  was  on  a 
sledge  across  the  snowy  steppes.  Packs  of  wolves 
invariably  followed  in  pursuit,  howling  fearfully  for 
prey.  The  traveller  was  always  provided  with  a 
stock  of  live  babies,  whom  he  loved  dearer  than  life 


44  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

itself,  but  whom  he  threw  out,  nevertheless,  to  the 
wolves,  one  by  one,  at  half-mile  distance  or  so. 
Then  he  threw  out  his  lovely  and  attached  wife  (at 
her  own  earnest  request,  I  need  not  say,)  and  then 
the  wolves,  intent  on  a  third  course,  leaped  into  the 
sledge,  and  made  an  end  of  him.  It  used  to  puzzle 
me  considerably  as  to  how  the  horses  escaped  being 
eaten  in  the  commencement,  for  the  sledge  always 
kept  going  at  a  tremendous  rate ;  and  I  was  always 
in  a  state  of  ludicrous  uncertainty  as  to  the  steppes 
— what  they  were  made  of, — wood,  or  stone,  or  turf; 
whether  children  ever  sat  on  them  with  babies  in 
their  arms ;  (but  the  wolves  would  never  have  allowed 
that,  surely !)  and  how  many  steps  there  were  to  a 
flight.  There  was  attraction  enough  to  me,  good- 
ness knows,  in  the  rest  of  the  atlas ;  in  boot-shaped 
Italy;  in  Africa,  huge  and  yellow  as  a  pumpkin, 
and  like  that  esculent,  little  excavated ;  in  the  Red 
Sea ;  (why  did  they  always  colour  it  pea-green  in  the 
map  ?)  but  the  vasty  Russia  with  its  appurtenances 
was  my  great  storehouse  of  romance.  The  Baltic 
was  a  continual  wonder  to  me.  How  could  ships 
ever  get  into  it  when  there  were  the  Great  and  Little 
Belts,  and  the  Kraken,  and  the  Maelstrom,  and  the 
icebergs,  and  the  polar  bears  to  stop  the  way.  Rus- 
sia (on  the  map)  was  one  vast  and  delightful  region 
of  mysteries,  and  adventures,  and  perilous  expedi- 
tions ;  a  glorious  wonder-land  of  czars  who  lived  in 
wooden  houses  disguised  as  shipwrights;  of  Cos- 
sacks continually  careering  on  long-maned  ponies, 
and  with  lances  like  Maypoles;  of  grisly  bears, 
sweet-smelling  leather,  ducks,  wolves,  palaces  of  ice, 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      45 

forests,  steppes,  frozen  lakes,  caftans,  long  beards, 
Kremlins,  and  Ivan  the  Terribles.  Never  mind  the 
knout ;  never  mind  the  perpetual  winter ;  never 
mind  the  passage  of  the  Beresina, — I  put  Russia 
down  in  my  juvenile  itinerary  as  a  place  to  be  vis- 
ited, coute  qui  coute,  as  soon  as  I  was  twenty-one. 
I  remember,  when  I  was  about  half  that  age,  travel- 
ling on  the  top  of  an  omnibus  from  Mile  End  to  the 
Bank  with  a  philosophic  individual  in  a  red  plaid 
cloak.  He  told  me  he  had  lived  ten  years  in  Russia 
(Rooshia,  he  pronounced  it,)  and  gave  me  to  under- 
stand confidentially  that  the  czar  ruled  his  subjects 
with  a  rod  of  iron.  I  grieved  when  he  departed, 
though  his  conversation  was  but  common-place.  I 
followed  him  half-way  up  Cornhill,  gazing  at  the  red 
plaid  skirts  of  his  cloak  flapping  in  the  breeze,  and 
revering  him  as  one  who  had  had  vast  and  wonderful 
experiences, — as  a  Sindbad  the  Sailor,  multiplied  by 
Marco  Polo.  Oh,  for  my  twenty-first  birthday,  and 
my  aunt's  legacy,  and  hey  for  Russia ! 

The  birthday  and  the  legacy  came  and  departed 
never  to  return  again.  I  received  sentence  of  im- 
prisonment within  three  hundred  miles  of  London, 
accompanied  by  hard  labour  for  the  term  of  my 
natural  life ;  and  though  I  was  far  from  forgetting 
Russia — though  a  poor  Silvio  Pellico  of  a  paper- 
stainer — I  still  cherished,  in  a  secret  corner  of  my 
heart,  a  wild  plan  of  escaping  from  the  Speilberg 
some  day,  and  travelling  to  my  heart's  content. 
Russia  faded  by  degrees  into  the  complexion  of  a 
story-book,  to  be  believed  in,  furtively,  but  against 
reason  and  against  hope.  And  this  dreamy,  legend- 


46  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

ary  state  of  feeling  was  not  a  little  encouraged  by 
the  extraordinary  paucity  of  fact,  and  the  astonish- 
ing abundance  of  fiction  to  be  found  in  all  books  I 
could  obtain  about  Russia.  Every  traveller  seemed 
to  form  a  conception  of  the  country  and  people 
more  monstrous  and  unveracious  than  his  predeces- 
sor ;  and  I  really  think  that,  but  for  the  war,  and  the 
Prisoners  at  Lewes,  and  the  Times  Correspondent, 
I  should  have  ended  by  acceding  to  the  persuasion 
that  Russia  was  none  other  than  the  Empire  of 
Cockaigne,  and  the  Emperor  Nicholas  the  legitimate 
successor  of  Prester  John. 

But,  now,  lo !  the  story-book  has  come  true  !  This 
is  real  Russian' writing  on  my  passport;  there  are 
two  live  Russians  playing  ecarte  on  the  poop,  and  I 
am  steaming  merrily  through  the  real  Baltic.  We 
may  see  the  Mirage  this  evening,  the  chief  mate 
says,  hopefully.  We  may  be  among  the  Ice  to- 
morrow, says  weather-worn  Captain  Smith  (not 
Captain  Steffens,  he  is  too  prudent  to  allude  to  such 
matters,  but  another  captain — a  honorary  navigator) 
ominously.  Ice,  Mirage,  and  the  Gulf  of  Finland! 
Are  not  these  better  than  a  cold  day  in  the  Strand, 
or  a  steamboat  collision  in  the  Pool  ? 

We  are  only  thirty  passengers  for  Cronstadt,  and 
the  "  Preussischer  Adler  "  has  ample  accommodation 
for  above  a  hundred.  It  may  not  be  out  of  place, 
however,  to  remark,  that  there  is  an  infinitely  stronger 
desire  to  get  out  of  this  favoured  empire  than  to  get 
into  it.  There  have  been,  even,  I  am  told,  some 
Russians  born  and  bred  under  the  beneficent  rule  of 
the  autocrat,  who,  having  once  escaped  from  the 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      47 

land  of  their  birth,  have  been  altogether  so  wanting 
in  patriotic  feeling  as  never  to  return  to  it ;  sted- 
fastly  disregarding  the  invitations — nay,  commands 
— of  their  government  despatches  through  their 
chanceries  in  foreign  countries. 

In  Prussia  and  Denmark,  and  in  my  progress  due 
north,  generally,  I  had  observed,  when  I  happened 
to  mention  my  intention  of  going  to  St.  Petersburg, 
a  peculiar  curiosity  to  know  the  purport  of  my  jour- 
ney thither,  quite  distinct  from  official  inquisitive- 
ness.  My  interlocutor  would  usually  ask  "  whether 
Monsieur  sold  ?  "  and  when  I  replied  that  I  did  not 
sell  any  thing,  he  would  parry  the  question,  and  in- 
quire "  whether  Monsieur  bought  ?  "  Then  on  my 
repudiation  of  any  mercantile  calling  whatsoever, 
my  questioner  would  hint  that  music-masters  and 
tutors  were  very  handsomely  paid  in  Russia.  I  de- 
voted myself  to  the  instruction,  perhaps.  No ;  I  did 
not  teach  any  thing  ;  and,  on  this,  my  catechist  after 
apparently  satisfying  himself  from  my  modest  ap- 
pearance, that  I  was  neither  an  ambassador  nor  a 
secretary  of  legation,  would  shrug  up  his  shoul- 
ders and  give  a  low  whistle,  and  me  a  look  which 
might,  with  extreme  facility,  be  translated  into, 
"  Que  diable  allez-vous  faire  dans  cette  g-alere  ? " 
I  have  never  been  in  New  England ;  but,  from  the 
gauntlet  of  questions  I  had  to  run  in  Northern 
Europe,  I  believe  myself  qualified,  when  my  time 
comes,  to  bear  Connecticut  with  equanimity,  and  to 
confute  the  questionings  of  Massachusetts  without 
difficulty. 

We  are  thirty  passengers,  as  I  have  said,  and  we 


48  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

are  commanded  by  Captain  Steffens.  Captain 
Steffens  is  red  of  face,  blue  of  gills,  black  and  shiny 
of  hair,  high  of  shirt-collar,  and  an  officer  of  the 
royal  Prussian  navy.  He  will  be  Admiral  Steffens, 
I  doubt  not,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  when  the  Prus- 
sian government  has  built  a  vessel  large  enough  for 
him  to  hoist  his  flag  in.  About  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  before  we  started,  I  had  observed  the  red  face 
and  the  high  shirt-collar  popping  in  and  out — with 
Jack-in-the-box  celerity — of  a  little  state-room  on 
the  deck.  I  had  previously  been  dull  enough  to 
take  the  first  mate,  who  stood  at  the  gangway,  for 
the  commander  of  the  "  Preussischer  Adler,"  and  to 
admire  the  tasteful  variety  of  his  uniform,  composed 
as  it  was,  of  a  monkey-jacket  with  gilt  buttons,  a 
sky-blue  cap  with  a  gold  band,  fawn-coloured  trous- 
ers, and  a  tartan  velvet  waistcoat  of  a  most  distract- 
ing liveliness  of  pattern  and  colour.  But  it  was 
only  at  the  last  moment  that  I  was  undeceived,  and 
was  made  to  confess  how  obtuse  I  had  been ;  for 
then,  the  state-room  door  flying  wide  open,  Captain 
Steffens  was  manifest  with  the  thirty  passengers' 
passports  in  one  hand,  and  a  tremendous  telescope 
in  the  other,  and  arrayed  besides  in  all  the  glory  of 
a  light-blue  frock,  a  white  waistcoat,  an  astonishing 
pair  of  epaulettes  of  gold  bullion,  ("  swabs,"  I  be- 
lieve, they  are  termed  in  nautical  parlance,)  a  shirt- 
frill  extending  at  right  angles  from  his  manly  breast, 
like  a  fan,  and  patent-leather  boots.  But  why,  Cap- 
tain Steffens,  why,  did  you  suffer  a  navy  cap  with  a 
gold-laced  band  to  replace  the  traditional,  the  mar- 
tial, the  becoming  cocked-hat  ?  For  with  that  tele- 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      49 

scope,  that  frill,  those  epaulettes,  that  rubicund 
visage,  and  that  (missing)  cocked-hat,  Captain  Stef- 
fens  would  have  looked  the  very  Fetch  and  coun- 
terfeit presentment  of  the  immortal  admiral  who 
"  came  to  hear  on  "  the  punishment  of  the  faithless 
William  Taylor  by  the  "  maiden  fair  and  free," 
whom  he  had  deserted,  and  which  admiral  not  only 
"  werry  much  applauded  her  for  what  she  had  done," 
but  likewise  appointed  her  to  the  responsible  posi- 
tion of  first  lieutenant  "  of  the  gallant  Thunder- 
bomb." 

But  though  unprovided  with  a  cocked-hat,  Cap- 
tain Steffens  turns  out  to  be  a  most  meritorious 
commander.  He  takes  off  his  epaulettes  after  we 
have  left  Swinemunde,  and  subsides  into  shoulder- 
straps  ;  but  the  long  telescope  never  leaves  him,  and 
he  seems  to  have  an  equal  partiality  for  the  thirty 
passports.  He  is  always  conning  them  over  behind 
funnels,  and  in  dim  recesses  of  the  forecastle ;  and 
he  seems  to  have  a  special  penchant  for  perusing 
mine,  and  muttering  my  name  over  to  himself,  as  if 
there  were  something  wrong  about  me,  or  the  fa- 
mous scrap  of  paper  which  has  given  me  so  much 
trouble.  I  step  to  him  at  last,  and  request  to  be 
permitted  to  enlighten  him  on  any  doubtful  point 
he  may  descry.  He  assures  me  that  all  is  right; 
but  he  confesses  that  passports  are  the  bane  of  his 
existence.  "  Those  people  yonder,"  he  whispers, 
motioning  with  his  thumb  towards  where  I  sup- 
posed in  the  steamer's  course  is  Cronstadt,  "  are  the 
very  deuce  with  passports,  lieber  Herr"  And  he 
sits  on  the  pile  of  passports  all  dinner-time ;  and, 


60  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

just  before  I  go  to  bed,  I  discover  him  peeping  over 
them  with  the  chief  mate,  by  the  light  of  the  bin- 
nacle-lamp, and  I  will  be  sworn  he  has  got  mine 
again,  holding  it  up  to  the  light. 

Confound  those  passports!  It  appears  to  me 
that  the  traveller  who  has  his  passport  most  in 
accordance  with  the  rule  and  regulation  is  subject 
to  the  most  annoyance.  At  Stettin  I  had  to  go  to 
the  Russian  consul's  bureau  to  procure  a  certificate 
of  legitimation  to  my  passport  before  they  would 
give  me  my  ticket  at  the  steam-packet  office.  The 
Muscovite  functionary  looked  at  my  Foreign-Office 
document  with  infinite  contempt,  and  informed  me 
that,  being  an  English  one,  it  was  by  no  means 
valid  in  Russia.  When  I  explained  to  him  that  it 
had  been  vise  by  his  own  ambassador  at  Berlin,  he 
disappeared  with  it,  still  looking  very  dubious,  into 
an  adjoining  apartment,  which,  from  sundry  hang- 
ings and  mouldings,  and  the  flounces  of  a  silk  dress 
which  I  espied  through  the  half-opened  door,  I  con- 
jecture to  have  been  the  boudoir  of  Madame  la 
Consulesse.  I  suppose  he  showed  the  passport  to 
his  wife ;  and,  enlightened,  doubtless,  by  her  superior 
judgment,  he  presently  returned  radiant,  saying  that 
the  passport  was  parfaitement  en  regie,  and  that  it 
was  charmant.  I  can  see  him  now,  holding  my 
passport  at  arm's  length,  and  examining  the  Rus- 
sian visd  through  his  eye-glass  with  an  air  half  criti- 
cal, half  approving,  as  if  it  were  some  natural 
curiosity  improved  by  cunning  workmanship,  and 
murmuring  charmant  meanwhile.  He  seemed  so 
fond  of  it  that  it  was  quite  a  difficulty  for  him  to 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      51 

give  it  me  back  again.  He  did  so  at  last,  together 
with  the  legitimation,  which  was  an  illegible 
scrawl  on  a  scrap  of  paper  like  a  pawnbroker's 
duplicate.  I  think  his  clerks  must  have  known  that 
my  passport  was  in  rule  and  charming,  for  they 
bestowed  quite  fraternal  glances  on  me  as  I  went 
out.  To  have  a  passport  in  regular  order  seems  to 
be  the  only  thing  necessary  to  be  thought  great  and 
wise  and  good  in  these  parts  ;  and,  when  a  virtuous 
man  dies,  I  wonder  they  don't  engrave  on  his  tomb- 
stone that  he  was  a  tender  father,  an  attached  hus- 
band, and  that  his  passport  was  parfaitement  en 
regie. 

I  wish  that,  instead  of  being  thirty  passengers,  we 
were  only  twenty-nine  ;  or,  at  all  events,  I  devoutly 
wish  that  the  thirtieth  were  any  other  than-  Captain 
Smith.  He  is  a  sea-captain ;  what  right  has  he  to 
be  in  another  man's  vessel?  Where  is  his  ship? 
He  has  no  right  even  to  the  name  of  Smith — he 
ought  to  be  Smit,  or  Schmidt,  for  he  tells  me  that 
he  was  born  at  Dantzig ;  that  it  is  only  in  the  fourth 
generation  that  he  can  claim  English  descent.  In- 
deed, he  speaks  English  fluently  enough,  but  with 
the  accent  of  a  Hottentot.  When  Captain  Smith 
was  an  egg,  he  must  indubitably  have  been  selected 
by  that  eminent  nautical  poultry-fancier,  Mother 
Carey,  for  chicken-hatching  purposes,  and  a  full- 
feathered  bird  of  ill-omen  he  has  grown  up  to  be. 
He  has  had  a  spite  against  the  "  Preussischer  Ad- 
ler "  from  the  outset ;  and  I  hear  him  grumbling  to 
himself  or  the  Baltic  Sea — it  does  not  much  matter 
which,  for  he  is  always  communing  with  one  or  the 


62  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

other — somewhat  in  this  fashion :  "  Den  dousand 
daler !  twenty  dousand  daler !  she  gostet  tinkering  up 
dis  time,  and  she  not  worth  a  tarn  ;  no,  not  one 
tarn  ; "  and  so  on.  He  has  a  camp-stool  on  which 
he  sits  over  the  engine  hatchway,  casting  baleful 
glances  at  the  cylinders,  and  grumbling  about  the 
number  of  dalers  they  have  "  gostet,"  and  that  they 
are  "  not  worth  a  tarn."  I  find  him  examining  a 
courier's  bag  I  have  purchased  at  Berlin,  and  evi- 
dently summing  up  its  value  by  the  curt  but  expres- 
sive phrase  I  have  ventured  to  quote.  I  discover 
him  counting,  watch  in  hand,  the  number  of  revolu- 
tions per  minute  of  the  engines,  and  muttering  dis- 
paraging remarks  to  the  steward.  He  takes  a  vast 
quantity  of  solitary  drams  from  a  private  bottle, 
openly  declaring  that  the  ship's  stores  are  to  be 
measured  by  his  invariable  standard  of  worthless- 
ness.  Sometimes,  in  right  of  nautical  freemasonry, 
he  mounts  the  paddle-box  bridge,  and  hovers  over 
Captain  SterTens  (he  is  very  tall)  like  an  Old  Man 
of  the  Sea,  whispering  grim  counsel  into  that  com- 
mander's ear,  till  Captain  Steffens  seems  very  much 
inclined  to  charge  at  him  full  butt  with  his  long  tel- 
escope, or  to  pitch  him  bodily  into  the  Baltic.  He 
haunts  the  deck  at  unholy  hours,  carrying  a  long  pair 
of  boots  lined  with  sheepskin,  which  he  incites  the 
cook,  with  drams  from  his  solitary  bottle,  to  grease, 
and  which  he  suspends,  for  seasoning,  to  forbidden 
ropes  and  stays.  The  subject  on  which  he  is  espec- 
ially eloquent  is  a  certain  ship — "  Schibb  "  he  calls  it 
— laden  with  madapolams,  and  by  him,  at  some  re- 
mote period  of  time,  commanded,  and  which  went 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      53 

down  off  the  island  of  Oesel,  or  Oosel,  or  Weasel,  in 
the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  forty-nine.  He  brings 
a  tattered  chart  of  his  own  on  deck,  (for  the  ship's 
charts,  he  confidentially  remarks,  are  not  worth  his 
favourite  monosyllable,)  and  shows  me  the  exact 
spot  where  the  ill-fated  vessel  came  to  grief.  "  Dere 
I  lose  my  schibb,  year  'vorty-nine,"  he  says.  "  Dere  ; 
just  vere  my  dumb  is."  (His  dumb,  or  thumb,  is  a 
huge  excrescence  like  a  leech  boiled  down,  and  with 
a  sable  hat  or  nail-band.)  "  Dere  de  '  Schon  Jung- 
frau '  went  down.  Hans  Schwieber  was  my  mate, 
and  de  supercargo  was  a  tarn  tief."  This  rider  to 
Falconer's  "  Shipwreck,"  and  an  interminable  narra- 
tive about  a  certain  Stevedore  of  the  port  of  Revel, 
who  had  the  property  of  getting  drunk  on  linseed- 
oil,  are  his  two  great  conversational  hobby-horses. 
It  is  very  easy  to  see  that  he  predicts  a  fate  similar 
to  that  of  the  "  Schon  Jungfrau  "  for  the  "  Preussi- 
scher  Adler."  Prussian  sailors,  according  to  him,  are 
good  for  nothing.  He  wants  to  know  where  Cap- 
tain Steffens  passed  his  examination ;  and  he  denies 
the  possibility  of  the  vessel  steering  well,  seeing  that 
the  Baltic  is  full  of  magnetic  islands,  which'  cause 
the  needle  to  fly  round  to  all  parts  of  the  compass  at 
once.  To  aggravate  his  imperfections,  he  wears  a 
tall  hat,  grossly  sinning  against  all  the  rules  of  nau- 
tical etiquette ;  and  he  smokes  the  biggest  and  rank- 
est of  Hamburg  cigars,  one  of  which,  like  an  ill-fla- 
voured sausage,  smoulders  on  the  bench  by  his  side 
all  dinner-time.  He  evidently  prefers  the  company  of 
the  second-cabin  passengers,  as  a  body,  to  ours  ;  and 
audibly  mutters  that  the  first-class  accommodation 


54  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

is  not  worth — I  need  not  repeat  what.  Altogether, 
he  is  such  a  baleful,  malignant,  wet-blanket  son  of  a 
gun,  that  I  feel  myself  fast  growing  mutinous  ;  and 
his  sinister  prophecies  go  on  multiplying  so  rapidly, 
that  I  christen  him  JONAH,  and  am  very  much  in- 
clined to  sign  a  round-robin,  or  to  head  a  deputation 
of  the  passengers  to  Captain  Steffens,  praying  that 
he  may  be  cast  into  the  sea.  But  where  is  the  fish 
that  would  consent  to  keep  such  a  terrible  old  bore 
for  three  days  and  nights  in  its  belly  ? 

As,  when  in  a  summer  afternoon's  nap  you  have 
been  drowsily  annoyed,  some  half-hour  durant,  by  a 
big  blue-bottle,  and  are  suddenly  awakened  by  the 
sharp  agony  of  a  hornet's  sting  full  in  the  calf  of 
your  favourite  leg,  so,  suddenly  does  the  passive  an- 
noyance of  Captain  Smith's  evil  predictions  cede  to 
the  active  torture  of  Miss  WAPPS'S  persecution. 
Miss  Wapps,  English,  travelling  alone,  and  aged 
forty,  has  taken  it  into  her  fair  head  to  entertain  a 
violent  dislike  to  me,  and  pursues  me  with  quite  a 
ferocity  of  antipathy.  She  is  a  lean  and  bony  spin- 
ster, with  a  curiously  blue-bronzed  nose,  and  cheek- 
bones to  match,  and  a  remarkable  mole  on  her  chin 
with  a  solitary  hair  growing  from  it  like  One-Tree 
Hill  at  Greenwich.  She  has  a  profusion  of  little 
ringlets  that  twist  and  twine  like  the  serpents  of  the 
Furies  that  had  taken  to  drinking,  and  had  been  met- 
amorphosed, as  a  punishment,  into  corkscrews.  To 
see  her  perambulating  the  decks  after  they  have  been 
newly  swabbed,  holding  up  her  drapery,  and  display- 
ing a  pair  of  baggy — well,  I  suppose  there  is  no 
harm  in  the  word — pantalettes,  and  with  a  great 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.       55 

round  flap  hat  surmounting  all,  she  looks  ludicrously 
like  an  overgrown  school -girl.  She  is  one  of  those 
terrible  specimens  of  humanity  who  have  a  precon- 
ceived persuasion — a  woman  who  has  made  up  her 
mind  about  everything — arts,  sciences,  laws,  learn- 
ing, commerce,  religion,  Shakspeare,  and  the  musical 
glasses — and  nothing  can  shake,  nothing  convince, 
nothing  mollify  her.  Her  conclusions  are  ordinarily 
unfavourable.  She  stayed  a  few  hours  at  the  Drei 
Kronen  at  Stettin,  where  I  had  the  advantage  of  her 
society,  and  she  made  up  her  mind  at  a  very  early 
stage  of  our  acquaintance  that  I  was  an  impostor, 
because  I  said  I  was  going  to  St.  Petersburg. 
"  Many  persons,"  she  remarked,  with  intense  acer- 
bity, "  talk  of  going  to  Russia,  when  they  never  go 
further  than  Gravesend.  I  am  going  to  St.  Peters- 
burg to  recover  my  property  devastated  by  the  late 
unchristian  war."  As  this  seemed  a  double-barrelled 
insinuation,  implying  not  only  my  having  stated  the 
thing  which  was  not,  but  also  the  unlikelihood  of 
my  possessing  any  property  to  be  devastated  or  re- 
covered, I  began  to  feel  sufficiently  uncomfortable, 
and  endeavoured  to  bring  about  a  better  state  of 
feeling,  by  asking  Miss  Wapps  if  I  might  have  the 
pleasure  of  helping  her  to  some  wine.  She  over- 
whelmed me  at  once  with  a  carboy  of  vitriolic  acid : 
she  never  took  wine — never  !  And  though  she  said 
no  more,  it  was  very  easy  to  gather  from  Miss 
Wapps's  tone  and  looks  that  in  her  eyes  the  person 
most  likely  to  rob  the  Bank  of  England,  go  over  to 
the  Pope  of  Rome,  and  assassinate  the  Emperor  of 
the  French,  would  be  the  man  who  did  take  wine 


56  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

to  his  dinner.  She  flatly  contradicted  me,  too,  as  to 
the  amount  of  the  fare  (which  I  had  just  paid)  from 
Stettin  to  Cronstadt.  She  had  made  up  her  mind 
that  it  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  francs  French 
money,  and  all  the  arguments  in  the  world  could  not 
bring  her  to  recognize  the  existence  of  such  things 
as  roubles  or  thalers.  But  where  she  was  Samsoni- 
cally  strong  against  me  was  on  the  question  of  my 
nationality.  As  I  happen  to  be  rather  swart  of  hue, 
and  a  tolerable  linguist,  she  took  it  into  her  head  at 
once  that  I  was  a  foreigner,  and  addressed  me  as 
"  Mossoo."  In  vain  did  I  try  to  convince  her  that  I 
was  born  and  bred  in  London,  within  the  sound  of 
Bow-bells.  To  make  the  matter  worse — it  being 
necessary  for  me,  during  one  of  the  endless  passport 
formalities,  to  answer  to  my  name,  which  is  not  very 
English  in  sound — it  went  conclusively  to  make  out 
a  case  against  me  in  the  mind  of  Miss  Wapps.  She 
called  me  Mossoo  again,  but  vengefully  in  sarcastic 
accents ;  and  complained  of  the  infamy  of  an  hon- 
ourable English  gentlewoman  being  beset  by  Jesuits 
and  spies. 

On  board,  Miss  Wapps  does  not  abate  one  atom 
of  her  animosity.  I  have  not  the  fatuity  to  believe 
that  I  am  what  is  usually  termed  popular  with  the 
sex ;  but  as  I  am,  I  hope,  inoffensive  and  a  good 
listener,  I  have  been  able  to  retain  some  desirable 
female  acquaintances ;  but  there  is  no  conciliating 
Miss  Wapps.  She  is  enraged  with  me  for  not  being 
sea-sick.  She  unmistakably  gives  me  to  understand 
that  I  am  a  puppy,  because  I  wear  the  courier's  bag 
slung  by  a  strap  over  my  shoulder ;  and  when  I 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      57 

meekly  represent  to  her  that  it  is  very  useful  for  car- 
rying lucifer-matches,  a  comb,  change,  Bradshaw, 
cigars,  eau-de-Cologne,  a  brandy-flask,  and  such 
small  matters,  she  gives  utterance  to  a  peculiar  kind 
of  feminine  grunt,  something  between  that  of  an 
asthmatic  pig  and  an  elderly  Wesleyan  at  a  moving 
part  of  the  sermon,  but  which  to  me  plainly  means 
that  she  hates  me,  and  that  she  does  not  believe  a 
word  I  say.  She  wants  to  know  what  the  world  is 
coming  to,  when  men  can  puff  their  filthy  tobacco 
under  the  noses  of  ladies  accustomed  to  the  best 
society  ?  and  when  I  plead  that  the  deck  is  the  place 
for  smoking,  and  that  all  the  other  gentlemen  pas- 
sengers are  doing  as  I  do,  she  retorts,  "  More  shame 
for  them ! "  She  alludes  to  the  pretty  stewardess 
by  the  appellation  of  "  hussey,"  at  which  I  feel 
vastly  moved  to  strangle  her ;  and  she  has  an  abom- 
inable air-cushion  with  a  hole  in  it,  which  is  always 
choking  up  hatchways,  or  tripping  up  one's  legs,  or 
tumbling  over  cabin-boys'  heads  like  the  Chinese 
cange.  As  a  culmination  of  injury,  she  publicly 
accuses  me  at  dinner  of  detaining  the  mustard  de- 
signedly and  of  malice  aforethought  at  my  end  of 
the  table.  I  am  covered  with  confusion,  and  endeav- 
our to  excuse  myself ;  but  she  overpowers  me  with 
her  voice,  and  Captain  Steffens  looks  severely  at 
me.  I  have  an  inward  struggle  after  dinner,  as  to 
whether  I  shall  give  her  a  piece  of  my  mind,  and  so 
shut  her  up  for  ever,  or  make  her  an  offer  of  mar- 
riage ;  but  I  take  a  middle  course,  and  subside  into 
the  French  language,  which  she  cannot  speak,  and 
in  which,  therefore,  she  cannot  contradict  me.  After 


58  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

this,  she  makes  common  cause  against  me  with 
Captain  Smith  (why  didn't  she  go  down  in  the 
"  Schon  Jungfrau  ?  ") ;  and  as  they  walk  the  deck 
together  I  don't  think  I  am  in  error  in  concluding 
that  she  is  continuing  to  denounce  me  as  a  Jesuit 
and  a  spy,  and  that  the  captain  has  imparted  to  her 
his  opinion  that  I  am  "  not  worth  a  tarn !  " 

We  have  another  lady  passenger  in  the  chief 
cabin ;  she  is  a  French  lady,  and  (she  makes  no  dis- 
guise at  all  about  the  matter)  an  actress.  She  is 
going  to  Moscow  for  the  coronation,  when  there  are 
to  be  grand  dramatic  doings  ;  bat  she  is  coming  out 
thus  early  to  stay  with  her  mamma,  also  an  actress, 
who  has  been  fifteen  years  in  St.  Petersburg.  "  Ima- 
ginez  vous"  she  says,  "  dans  ce  trou  !  "  She  is  very 
pretty,  very  coquettish,  very  good-natured,  very 
witty,  and  comically  ignorant  of  the  commonest 
things.  Captain  Steffens  loves  her  like  a  father 
already,  I  can  see.  Even  the  grim  Captain  Smith 
regards  her  with  the  affection  of  a  Dutch  uncle. 
She  dresses  every  morning  for  the  deck,  and  every 
afternoon  for  dinner,  with  as  much  care  as  though  she 
were  still  on  her  beloved  Boulevard  de  Gand.  Her 
hair  is  always  smooth,  her  eyes  always  bright,  her  little 
foot  always  bien  chaussee,  her  dress  always  in  apple- 
pie  order,  her  temper  always  lively,  cheerful,  amiable. 
She  eats  little  wings  of  birds  in  a  delightfully  cat- 
like manner,  and  chirps,  after  a  glass  of  champagne, 
in  a  manner  ravishing  to  behold.  She  is  all  lithe 
movements,  and  silver  laughter,  and  roguish  sayings. 
JEtyfin :  she  is  a  Parisienne !  What  need  I  say 
more  ?  She  has  a  dozen  of  the  gentlemen  passen- 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      59 

gers  at  her  feet  as  soon  as  she  boards  the  "  Preus- 
sischer  Adler,"  but  she  bestows  her  arm  for  the 
voyage  on  Monsieur  Alexandre,  a  fat  Frenchman 
with  a  beard  and  a  wide-awake  hat ;  who  is,  I  sus- 
pect, a  traveller  for  some  champagne  house  at 
Rheims.  He  follows  her  about  like  a  corpulent 
poodle ;  he  takes  care  of  her  baskets,  shawls,  and 
furs ;  he  toils  up  ladders  with  camp-stools  for  her ; 
he  holds  an  umbrella  over  her  to  shield  her  from  the 
sun ;  he  cuts  the  leaves  of  books  for  her ;  he  pro- 
duces for  her  benefit  private  stores  of  chocolate  and 
bon-bons ;  he  sits  next  to  her  at  dinner,  and  carves 
tit-bits  for  her ;  he  pays  for  the  champagne ;  he 
walks  the  deck  with  her  by  moonlight,  shielding  her 
from  the  midnight  air  with  ample  pelisses,  and  roll- 
ing his  little  eyes  in  his  fat  face.  She  is  all  smiles 
and  amiability  to  him  (as,  indeed,  to  every  one  else) ; 
she  allows  him  to  sit  at  her  feet ;  she  gives  him  to 
snuff  from  her  vinaigrette ;  she  pats  his  broad  back 
and  calls  him  "  Mon  bon  gros ; "  she  is  as  familiar 
with  him  as  if  she  had  known  him  a  quarter  of  a 
.century ;  she  orders  him  about  like  a  dog  or  a  black 
man ;  but  is  never  cross,  never  pettish.  She  will 
probably  give  him  the  tips  of  her  little  fingers  to  kiss 
when  she  leaves  him  at  Cronstadt ;  and,  when  some 
day  perhaps  she  meets  him  by  chance  on  the  Nev- 
skoi,  she  won't  know  him  from  Adam. 

'Twas  ever  thus  from  childhood's  hour — I  mean, 
this  is  always  my  fate.  Somebody  else  gets  the 
pleasant  travelling  companions  ;  I  get  the  Miss 
Wappses.  I  never  fall  in  love  with  a  pretty  girl, 
but  I  find  she  has  a  sweetheart  already,  or  has  been 


60  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

engaged  for  ten  years  to  her  cousin  Charles  in  India, 
who  is  coming  home  by  the  next  ship  to  marry  her. 
Am  I  not  as  good  as  a  wine-merchant's  bagman  ? 
Never  mind ;  let  me  console  myself  with  the  Rus- 
sian. 

The  Russian  is  a  gentleman  whose  two  years' 
term  of  travel  has  expired,  and  who,  not  being  able 
to  obtain  an  extension  of  his  leave  of  absence,  and 
not  very  desirous  of  having  his  estates  sequestered, 
which  would  be  the  penalty  of  disobedience,  is  re- 
turning, distressingly  against  his  own  inclination,  to 
Russia,  is  an  individual  who  looks  young  enough  to 
be  two  or  three  and  twenty,  and  old  enough  to  be 
two  or  three  and  forty.  How  are  you  to  tell  in  a 
gentleman  whose  hair,  without  a  speck  of  gray,  is 
always  faultlessly  brushed,  oiled,  perfumed,  and 
arranged ;  whose  moustache  is  lustrous,  firm,  and 
black ;  whose  teeth  are  sound  and  white ;  whose 
face  is  perfectly  smooth,  and  clear,  and  clean 
shaven ;  who  is  always  perfectly  easy,  graceful, 
and  self-possessed?  The  Russian  speaks  English 
and  French — the  first  language  as  you  and  I,  my 
dear  Bob,  speak  it ;  the  second  as  our  friend, 
Monsieur  Adolphe,  from  Paris,  would  speak  his 
native  tongue ;  by  which  I  mean  that  the  Russian 
speaks  English  like  an  Englishman,  and  French  like 
a  Frenchman,  without  hesitation,  accent,  or  foreign 
idiom.  He  is  versed  in  the  literature  of  both  coun- 
tries, and  talks  of  Sam  Weller  and  Jerome  Paturot 
with  equal  facility.  I  am,  perhaps,  not  so  well  qual- 
ified to  judge  of  his  proficiency  in  Italian ;  but  he 
seems  to  speak  that  tongue  with  at  least  the  same 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      61 

degree  of  fluency  as  he  converses  in  German,  of 
which,  according  to  Captain  Steffens,  he  is  a  master. 
He  laughs  when  I  talk  about  the  special  and  as- 
tounding gift  that  his  countrymen  seem  to  possess 
for  the  acquisition  of  languages.  "  Gift,  my  dear 
fellow,"  he  says,  "  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  cer- 
tainly picked  up  Italian  in  six  months,  during  a 
residence  in  the  country ;  but  I  could  speak  French, 
English,  and  German  long  before  I  could  speak 
Russian.  Nous  mitres  gentilhommes  Russes,  we 
have  English  nurses ;  we  have  French  and  Swiss 
governesses  ;  we  have  German  professors  at  college. 
As  children  and  as  adults  we  often  pass  days  and 
weeks  without  hearing  a  word  of  Russian  ;  and  the 
language  with  which  we  have  the  slightest  acquaint- 
ance is  our  own."  The  Russian  and  I  soon  grow 
to  be  great  (travelling)  friends.  He  talks,  and  seems 
to  be  well  informed,  on  every  body  and  every  thing, 
and  speaks  about  governments  and  dynasties  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  tone  of  easy  persiflage  in  which  he 
discusses  the  Italian  opera  and  the  ballet.  He  tells 
me  a  great  deal  about  the  Greek  church  ;  but  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  matters  ecclesiastical  don't  trouble 
"  nous  autres  gentilhommes  Russes  "  much.  He  has 
been  in  the  army,  like  the  vast  majority  of  his  order, 
and  is  learned  in  horses,  dogs,  and  general  sports- 
manship ;  a  branch  of  knowledge  that  clashes 
strangely  with  his  grassailleing  Parisian  accent. 
He  proposes  ecarte  in  an  interval  of  chat ;  but  find- 
ing that  I  am  but  a  poor  cardplayer,  he  shows  me  a 
few  tricks  on  the  cards  sufficient  to  set  a  moderately 
ambitious  wizard  up  in  business  on  the  spot,  and 


62  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

contentedly  relinquishes  the  pack  for  the  pianoforte, 
on  which  he  executes  such  brilliant  voluntaries,  that 
I  can  see  the  hard-favoured  visage  of  Miss  Wapps 
gazing  down  at  us  through  the  saloon  skylight  in 
discontented  admiration — that  decisive  lady  marvel- 
ling doubtless  how  such  an  accomplished  Russian 
can  condescend  to  waste  his  time  and  talents  on 
such  a  trumpery  mortal  as  I  am.  He  shows  me  an 
album  bound  in  green  velvet,  and  with  his  cipher 
and  coronet  embroidered  in  rubies  thereupon,  and 
filled  with  drawings  of  his  own  execution.  He 
rolls  paper  cigarettes  with  the  dexterity  of  a  Cas- 
tilian  caballero ;  and  he  has  the  most  varied  and 
exact  statistical  knowledge  on  all  sorts  of  topics, 
political,  social,  agricultural,  and  literary,  of  any 
man  I  ever  met  with.  And  this  is,  believe  me,  as 
ordinary  and  every-day-to-be-found  specimen  of  the 
Russian  gentlemen  as  the  unlettered,  unlicked,  un- 
couth, untravelled  John  Smith  one  meets  at  a  Bou- 
logne boarding-house  is  of  an  English  esquire.  My 
friend,  the  Russian,  has  his  little  peculiarities ;  with- 
out being  in  the  slightest  degree  grave  or  senten- 
tious that  facile  mouth  of  his  is  never  curved  into  a 
genuine  smile ;  those  dark -gray  eyes  of  his  never 
look  you  in  the  face ;  he  seems  never  tired  of  drink- 
ing champagne,  and  never  in  the  least  flushed 
thereby  ;  and  finally  and  above  all,  I  never  hear  him 
express  an  opinion  that  any  human  thing  is  right  or 
wrong.  If  he  have  an  opinion  on  any  subject,  and 
he  converses  on  almost  all  topics,  it  is  not  on  board 
the  "  Preussischer  Adler,"  or  to  me,  that  he  will 
impart  it.  With  his  handsome  face  and  graceful 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.      63 

carriage,  and  varied  parts,  this  is  the  sort  of  man 
whom  nine  women  out  of  ten  would  fall  desperately 
in  love  with  at  first  sight ;  yet  he  drops  a  witty 
anecdote  or  so  about  the  sex,  that  makes  me  start 
and  say,  Heaven  help  the  woman  who  ever  falls  in 
love  with  him ! 

It  may  have  struck  the  reader,  that  beyond  allud- 
ing to  the  bare  fact  of  being  on  the  Baltic,  and  in  a 
fair  way  for  Cronstadt,  I  have  said  little  or  nothing 
as  yet  concerning  our  actual  voyage.  In  the  first 
place,  there  is  but  little  marine  intelligence  to  be 
chronicled;  for  from  Saturday  at  noon,  when  we 
started,  to  this  present  Monday  evening,  we  have 
had  uninterrupted  fair  weather  and  smooth  water ; 
and  are  gliding  along  as  on  a  lake.  And,  in  the 
second  place,  I  generally  avoid  the  subject  of  the 
sea  as  much  as  I  can.  I  hate  it.  I  have  a  dread 
for  it,  as  Mrs.  Hemans  had.  To  me  it  is  simply  a 
Monster,  cruel,  capricious,  remorseless,  rapacious, 
insatiable,  deceitful ;  sullenly  unwilling  to  disgorge 
its  treasures ;  mockingly  refusing  to  give  up  its  dead. 
But  it  must,  and  Shall,  some  day  :  the  Sea.  If  any 
thing  could  reconcile  me,  however,  to  that  baseless 
highway,  it  would  be  the  days  and  nights  we  have 
had  since  Saturday.  It  is  never  dark,  and  the  moon, 
beautiful  as  she  is,  is  almost  an  intruder,  so  long 
does  the  sun  lord  it  over  the  heavens,  so  short  are 
his  slumbers,  (it  is  not  far  from  the  time  and  place 
where  he  rises  at  midnight,*)  so  gloriously  strong 
and  fresh  does  he  come  up  to  his  work  again  in  the 

*  At  Toraea,  in  Sweden,  on  the  twenty-first  of  June. 


64  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

morning.  And  the  white  ships  that  glide  on  the 
tranquil  sea,  far  far  away  towards  the  immensity  of 
the  horizon,  are  as  auguries  of  peace  and  hope  to 
me ;  and  the  very  smoke  from  the  boat's  funnel  that 
was  black  and  choky  at  Stettin,  is  now,  in  the  un- 
dying sun,  all  gorgeous  in  purple  and  orange  as  it 
rolls  forth  in  clouds  that  wander  rudderless  through 
the  empty  sky,  till  the  sea-birds  meet  them,  and 
break  them  into  fragments  with  their  sharp-sected 
wings. 

There  is  a  very  merry  party  forward,  in  the  second 
cabin.  Among  them  is  a  humorous  character  from 
the  south  of  France,  who  is  proceeding  to  Russia  to 
superintend  a  sugar  manufactory  belonging  to  some 
Russian  seigneur.  He  has  been  established  by  com- 
mon consent  chief  wag  and  joke-master  in  ordinary 
to  the  Prussian  Eagle.  I  hear  shouts  of  laughter 
from  where  he  holds  his  merry  court  long  after  I  am 
snug  in  my  berth  ;  and  the  steward  retails  his  latest 
witticisms  to  us  at  dinner,  hot  and  hot,  between 
the  courses.  He  lives  at  free  quarters,  for  his  jests' 
sakes,  in  the  way  of  wines,  spirits,  and  cigars ;  and. 
I  don't  think  the  steward  can  have  the  heart  to  take 
any  money  of  him  for  fees  or  extras  at  the  voyage's 
end.  "  Qu'il  est  gai!"  says  the  French  actress 
admiringly.  As  a  wag  he  must,  of  course,  have  a 
butt :  and  he  has  fixed  on  a  little,  snuffy,  old  French- 
woman, with  a  red  cotton  pocket-handkerchief  tied 
round  her  head,  who,  with  a  large  basket,  a  larger 
umbrella,  and  no  other  perceptible  luggage,  started 
up  suddenly  at  Stettin.  She  has  got  a  passport 
with  Count  Orloft's  own  signature  appended  to  it, 


I  AM  ABOARD  THE  PRUSSIAN  EAGLE.       65 

and  does  not  seem  to  mind  the  Russians  a  bit. 
Who  can  she  be  ?  The  Czar's  fostermother,  per- 
haps. The  funny  Frenchman  (who  never  saw  her 
before  in  his  life)  now  calls  her  " maman"  now 
assumes  to  be  madly  in  love  with  her,  to  the  infinite 
merriment  of  the  other  passengers ;  but  she  repulses 
his  advances  with  the  utmost  good  humour,  and 
evidently  considers  him  to  be  a  wag  of  the  first 
water.  Many  of  this  good  fellow's  jokes  are  of  a 
slightly  practical  nature,  and  would,  in  phlegmatic 
English  society,  probably  lead  to  his  being  kicked 
by  somebody;  but  to  me  they  are  all  amply  re- 
deemed by  his  imperturbable  good  humour,  and  his 
frank,  hearty  laughter.  Besides,  he  won  my  heart 
in  the  very  commencement  by  making  a  face  behind 
Miss  Wapps's  back  so  supernaturally  comic,  so  irre- 
sistibly ludicrous,  that  Grimaldi,  had  he  known  him, 
would  have  been  jaundiced  with  envy.  The  great 
Captain  Steffens  favours  this  jovial  blade,  and 
unbends  to  him,  they  say,  more  than  he  has  ever 
been  known  to  do  to  mortal  second-cabin  passenger. 
The  ill-boding  Captain  Smith  came  to  my  berth 
last  night,  with  a  rattlesnake-like  smile,  to  tell  me  we 
were  off  Hango  Head,  (a  fit  place  for  such  a  raven 
to  herald,)  and  to  refresh  my  memory  about  the  ice  ; 
and  here,  sure  enough,  this  Tuesday  morning,  we 
are  in  the  very  thick  of  floating  masses  of  the  frozen 
sea  !  Green,  transparent,  and  assuming  every  kind 
of  weird  and  fantastic  shapes,  they  hem  the  "  Preus- 
sischer  Adler  "  round,  cracking  and  groaning  "  like 
noises  in  a  swound,"  as  the  Ancient  Mariner  heard 
them.  Warm  and  balmy  as  the  May  air  was 


66  A  JOUKNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

ternight,  it  is  now  piercing  cold ;  and  I  walk  the 
deck  a  very  moving  bale  of  furs,  which  the  courte- 
ous Russian  has  insisted  on  lending  me.  We  are 
obliged  to  move  with  extreme  caution  and  slowness, 
stopping  altogether  from  time  to  time ;  but  the  ice 
gradually  lessens,  gradually  disappears ;  the  shores 
of  the  Gulf  keep  gradually  becoming  more  distinct ; 
and,  on  the  Russian  side,  I  can  see  white  houses 
and  the  posts  of  the  telegraph. 

About  noon  on  Tuesday,  the  twentieth  of  May, 
turning  at  the  gangway  to  walk  towards  the  steam- 
er's head,  I  see  a  sight  that  does  my  eyes  good.  I 
have  the  advantage  of  being  extremely  short-sighted, 
and  a  view  does  not  grow,  but  starts  upon  me. 
And  now,  all  fresh  and  blue,  and  white,  and  spark- 
ling and  dancing  in  the  sunlight,  I  see  a  scene  that 
Mr.  STANFIELD  might  paint — a  grove  of  masts, 
domes  and  steeples,  and  factory  chimneys ;  a  myriad 
of  trim  yachts  and  smaller  craft,  and,  dotting  the 
bright  blue  water  like  the  Seven  Castles  of  the 
Devil,  with  tier  above  tier  of  embrasures  bristling 
with  cannon,  the  granite  forts  of  the  impregnable 
Cronstadt.  There  is  a  big  guard-ship  behind  us, 
and  forts  and  guns  on  every  side,  and  I  feel  that  I 
am  in  for  it. 

"  Lads,  sharpen  your  cutlasses,"  was  the  signal  of 
the  Admiral  who  didn't  breakfast  in  Cronstadt  and 
dine  in  St.  Petersburg.  Let  me  put  a  fresh  nib  to 
my  goosequill,  and  see  what  I  can  do,  in  my  hum- 
ble way,  to  make  some  little  impression  on  those 
granite  walls. 


I  LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  67 

Hi. 

I   LAND   AT   CRONSTADT. 

WE  had  no  sooner  cast  anchor  in  the  harbour  of 
Cronstadt,  (it  needed  something  to  divert  my  atten- 
tion, for  I  had  been  staring  at  the  forts  and  their 
embrasures,  especially  at  one  circular  one  shelving 
from  the  top,  like  a  Stilton  cheese  in  tolerably 
advanced  cut,  till  the  whole  sky  swarmed  before 
me,  a  vast  plain  of  black  dots,)  than  we  were 
invaded  by  the  Russians.  If  the  naval  forces  of  his 
imperial  majesty  Alexander  the  Second  display  half 
as  much  alacrity  in  boarding  the  enemies'  ships  in 
the  next  naval  engagement  as  did  this  agile  board- 
ing-party of  policemen  and  custom-house  officers,  no 
British  captain  need  trouble  himself  to  nail  his 
colours  to  the  mast.  The  best  thing  he  can  do  is  to 
strike  them  at  once,  or  put  them  in  his  pocket,  and 
so  save  time  and  bloodshed.  On  they  came  like 
cats,  a  most  piratical-looking  crew  to  be  sure.  There 
were  big  men  with  red  moustaches,  yellow  mous- 
taches, drab  moustaches,  grey  moustaches,  fawn- 
coloured  moustaches,  and  white  moustaches.  Some 
had  thrown  themselves  into  whiskers  with  all  the 
energy  of  their  nature,  and  had  produced  some 
startling  effects  in  that  line.  A  pair  of  a  light-buff 
colour,  poudre  with  coal-dust  (he  had  probably  just 
concluded  an  official  visit  to  some  neighbouring 
engine-room,)  were  much  admired.  There  were 


68  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

men  with  faces  so  sun-baked,  that  their  eyes  looked 
considerably  lighter  than  their  faces ;  there  were 
others  with  visages  so  white  and  pasty  that  their 
little,  black,  Chinese  eyes  looked  like  currants  in  a 
suet-dumpling.  And  it  was  now,  for  the  first  time, 
that,  with  great  interest  and  curiosity,  I  saw  the 
famous  Russian  military  greatcoat — that  hideous 
capote  of  some  coarse  frieze  of  a  convict-colour,  half- 
grey,  half-drab  (the  colour  of  inferior  oatmeal,  to  be 
particular,)  which  is  destined,  I  suppose,  to  occupy 
as  large  a  place  in  history  as  the  redingote  guise  of 
the  first  Napoleon.  These  greatcoats — buttoned 
straight  down  from  the  throat  to  the  waist  and  from 
thence  falling  down  to  the  heels  in  uncouth  folds 
and  gathered  in  behind  with  a  buckle  and  strap  of 
the  same  cloth — had  red  collars  and  cuffs,  the  former 
marked  with  letters  in  a  fantastic  alphabet,  that 
looked  as  a  Greek  Lexicon  might  look  after  a  sup- 
per of  raw  pork  chops.  The  letters  were  not  Greek, 
not  Arabic,  not  Roman,  and  yet  they  had  some  of 
the  characteristics  of  each  abecedaire.  These  gentry 
were  police  officers ;  most  of  them  wore  a  round  flat 
cap  with  a  red  band ;  and  if  you  desire  further  details, 
go  to  the  next  toyshop  and  purchase  a  Noah's  ark, 
and  among  the  male  members  (say  Shem :  Ham  is 
too  bright-looking)  you  will  find  the  very  counter- 
part of  these  Russian  pollzeis.  One  little  creature, 
apparently  about  sixty  years  of  age,  almost  a  dwarf, 
almost  hump-backed,  and  with  a  face  so  perforated 
with  pockmarks  that,  had  you  permission  to  empty 
his  skull  of  its  contents,  you  might  have  used 
him  for  a  cullender  and  strained  maccaroni  through 


I  LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  69 

him — but  with  a  very  big  sword  and  a  fierce  pair 
of  moustaches  ;  this  small  Muscovite  I  named 
Japhet  on  the  spot.  He  walked  and  fell  (over  my 
portmanteau,  I  am  sorry  to  say)  all  in  one  piece ; 
and,  when  he  saluted  his  officer  (which  every  one 
of  the  privates  seemed  to  do  twice  in  every  three 
minutes,)  and  which  salute  consists  in  a  doffing 
of  the  cap  and  a  very  low  bow,  he  seemed  to  have 
a  hinge  in  his  spine,  but  nowhere  else.  There  were 
men  in  authority  amongst  these  policemen,  mostly 
athletic,  big-whiskered  fellows,  who  looked  as  if  they 
did  the  knocking-down  part  of  the  police  business 
(shall  I  ever  know  better  what  these  large-whiskered 
men  do,  I  wonder  ?)  These  wore  helmets  with 
spikes  on  the  top  and  the  Double  Eagle,  in  the 
brightest  tin,  in  front.  They  must  have  been  mighty 
warriors  too,  some  of  them ;  for  many  were  decor- 
ated with  medals  and  crosses,  not  of  any  very  ex- 
pensive materials,  and  suspended  to  ribbons  of 
equivocal  hue,  owing  to  the  dirt.  On  the  broad 
breast  of  one  brave  I  counted  nine  medals  and 
crosses  (I  counted  them  twice,  carefully,  to  be  quite 
certain)  strung  all  of  a  row  on  a  straight  piece  of 
wire ;  and,  with  their  tawdry  scraps  of  ribbons, 
looking  exceedingly  like  the  particolored  rags  you 
see  on  a  dyer's  pole.  Some  had  great  stripes  or 
galons  of  coppery -looking  lace  on  their  sleeves ; 
and  there  was  one  officer  who  not  only  wore  a 
helmet,  but  a  green  surtout  laced  with  silver,  the 
ornaments  of  which  were  inlaid  with  black  dirt 
and  grease  in  a  novel  and  tasteful  manner.  The 
custom-house  officers  wore  unpretending  uniforms 


70  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

of  shabby  green,  and  copper  buttons :  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  subordinates,  both  polizeis  and  dona- 
niers,  had  foul  Belcher  handkerchiefs  twisted  round 
their  necks.  There  were  two  other  trifling  circum- 
stances peculiar  to  these  braves,  which,  in  my  qual- 
ity of  an  observer,  I  may  be  allowed  to  mention. 
Number  one  is,  that  nearly  all  these  men  had  no 
lobes  to  their  ears.*  Number  two  is,  that  from  care- 
ful and  minute  peeping  up  their  sleeves  and  down 
their  collars,  I  am  in  a  position  to  declare  my  be- 
lief that  there  was  not  one  single  shirt  among  the 
whole  company.  About  the  officer  I  cannot  be  so 
certain.  I  did  not  venture  to  approach  near  enough 
to  him;  but  I  had  four  hours'  opportunity  to  ex- 
amine the  privates,  (as  you  will  shortly  hear,)  and 
what  I  have  stated  is  the  fact.  A  Hottentot  private 
gentleman  is  not  ordinarily  considered  to  be  a  model 
of  cleanliness.  It  is  difficult  in  England  to  find 
dirtier  subjects  for  inspection  than  the  tramps  in 
a  low  lodging-house ;  but  for  dirt  surpassing  ten 
thousand  times  anything  I  have  ever  yet  seen, 
commend  me  to  our  boarding-party.  They  were, 
assuredly,  the  filthiest  set  of  ragamuffins  that  ever 
kept  step  since  Lieutenant- Colonel  Falstaff  's  regi- 
ment was  disbanded. 

I  am  thus  particular  on  a  not  very  inviting  subject, 
because  the  remarkable  contrast  between  the  hideous 
dirt  of  the  soldiery  on  ordinary,  and  their  scrupulous 
cleanliness  on  extraordinary  occasions,  is  one  of 

*  This  is  a  physical  peculiarity  I  have  observed  in  scores  of 
Russians — some  of  them  in  the  highest  classes  of  society. 


I   LAND   AT  CRONSTADT.  71 

the  things  that  must  strike  the  attention  (and  at 
least  two  of  the  senses)  of  every  traveller  in  Russia. 
On  parade,  at  a  review,  whenever  he  is  to  be  in- 
spected, a  Russian  soldier  (and  under  that  generic 
name  I  may  fairly  include  policemen  and  douaniers 
in  a  country  where  even  the  postmen  are  military) 
is  literally — outwardly  at  least — as  clean  as  a  new 
pin.  But  it  would  seem  that  it  is  only  under  the 
eye  of  his  emperor  or  his  general  that  the  Musco- 
vite warrior  is  expected  to  be  clean;  for,  on  every 
occasion  but  those  I  have  named,  he  is  the  dirtiest, 
worst-smelling  mortal  to  be  found  anywhere  be- 
tween Beachy  Head  and  the  Bay  of  Fundy.  I  am 
fearful,  too,  lest  I  should  be  thought  exaggerating 
on  the  topic  of  shirts  ;  but  it  is  a  fact  that  the  Rus- 
sians, as  a  people,  do  not  yet  understand  the  proper 
use  of  a  linen  or  cotton  under-garment.  The  mou- 
jiks,  who  wear  shirts,  are  apparently  in  the  same 
state  of  doubt  as  to  how  to  wear  them,  as  the  Scot- 
tish Highlanders  were  on  the  subject  of  pantaloons 
after  the  sumptuary  laws  of  seventeen  hundred  and 
forty-six.  Poor  Alister  Macalister  carried  the 
breeches  which  the  ruthless  Sassenach  government 
had  forced  on  him,  on  the  top  of  his  walking-pole. 
Ivan  Ivanovitch  wears  his  shirt,  when  he  is  lucky 
enough  to  possess  one,  outside  his  trousers,  after 
the  manner  of  a  surplice.  The  soldier  thinks  that 
the  uniform  greatcoat  covers  a  multitude  of  sins, 
and  wears  no  shirt  at  all.  According  to  the  accu- 
rate Baron  de  Haxthausen,  the  kit  of  every  Russian 
soldier  ought  to  contain  three  shirts ;  but  theory  is 
one  thing,  and  practice  another ;  and  I  can  state,  of 


72  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NOBTH. 

my  own  personal  experience,  that  I  have  played 
many  games  of  billiards  with  Russian  officers  even, 
(you  can't  "well  avoid  seeing  up  to  your  opponent's 
elbow  at  some  stages  of  the  game,)  and  that  if 
they  possessed  shirts,  they  either  kept  them  laid 
up  in  lavender  at  home,  or  wore  them  without 
sleeves. 

The  unsavoury  boarders  who  had  thus  made  the 
Preussischer  Adler  their  prize,  very  speedily  let  us 
know  that  we  were  in  a  country  where  a  man  may 
not,  by  any  means,  do  what  he  likes  with  his  own- 
They  guarded  the  gangway,  they  pervaded  the 
wheel,  and  not  only  spoke  to  the  man  thereat,  but 
rendered  his  further  presence  there  quite  unneces- 
sary. They  placed  the  funnel  under  strict  surveil- 
lance, and  they  took  possession  of  the  whole  of  the 
baggage  at  one  fell  swoop,  attaching  to  each  pack- 
age curious  little  leaden  seals  stuck  on  bits  of 
string,  and  inscribed  with  mysterious  hieroglyphs 
strongly  resembling  the  Rabbinical  cachets  which 
the  Hebrew  butchers  in  Whitechapel  Market  append 
to  their  joints  of  meat.  Then  a  tall  douanier  began 
wandering  among  the  maze  of  chests,  portmanteaus, 
and  carpet-bags  ;  marking  here  and  there  a  package 
in  abstruse  and  abstracted  manner  with  a  piece  of 
chalk,  as  though  he  were  working  out  mathematical 
problems.  We  were  not  allowed  to  carry  the 
smallest  modicum  of  luggage  on  our  persons ; 
and — as  I  had  been  incautious  enough,  just  before 
our  arrival  in  harbour,  to.  detach  my  unlucky 
courier's  bag  from  my  side,  and  to  hold  it  in  my 
hand,— I  was  soon  unpleasantly  reminded  of  the 


I   LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  73 

stringency  of  the  customs'  regulations  of  the  port 
of  Cronstadt.  The  tall  douanier  pounced  upon  the 
harmless  leather  pouch  quite  gleefully,  and  instanta- 
neously declaring  (in  chalk)  on  the  virgin  leather 
that  the  angle  A.  G.  was  equal  to  the  angle  G.  B., 
added  it  to  the  heap  of  luggage  which  then  encum- 
bered the  deck.  There  it  lay,  with  the  little  French 
actress's  swan-down  boa,  and  I  am  happy  to  state, 
my  old  enemy — Miss  Wapps's  perforated  air-cush- 
ion. But  Miss  Wapps  made  the  steward  the 
wretchedest  man  in  Russia  for  about  five  minutes ; 
so  fiercely  did  she  rate  him  on  the  sequestration  of 
that  chattel  of  hers. 

There  was  a  dead  pause,  a  rather  uncomfortable 
status  quo  about  this  time,  everybody  seemed  to  be 
waiting  for  the  performances  to  begin,  and  the 
boarding-party  looked,  in  their  stiff,  awkward  immo- 
bility, like  a  band  of  "  supers "  waiting  the  arrival 
of  the  tyrant.  Only  the  little  creature  who  was 
nearly  a  hunchback  was  active ;  for  the  mathemati- 
cal genius  had  gone  to  sleep,  or  was  pretending  to 
sleep  on  a  sea-chest,  with  his  head  resting  in  his 
chalky  hands.  It  seemed  to  be  the  province  of  this 
diminutive  but  lynx-eyed  functionary  to  guard 
against  the  possibility  of  any  contraband  merchan- 
dise oozing  out  of  the  baggage  after  it  had  been 
sealed  ;  and  he  went  peering,  and  poking,  and  turn- 
ing up  bags  and  boxes  with  his  grimy  paws,  sniffing 
sagaciously  meanwhile,  as  if  he  could  discover  pro- 
hibited books  and  forged  bank  notes  by  scent. 
Captain  Steffens  had  mysteriously  disappeared ;  and 
the  official  with  the  silver-lace,  inlaid  with  dirt,  was 


74  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NOKTH. 

nowhere  to  be  found.  About  this  time,  also,  it  oc- 
curred to  the  crew — taking  advantage  of  this  forty- 
bars'  rest — to  send  a  deputation  aft,  consisting  of  a 
hairy  mariner  in  a  fur-cap,  ear-rings,  a  piebald  cow- 
skin  waistcoat,  a  green  shirt,  worsted  net  tights  and 
hessians,  to  solicit  trink-geld,  or  drink-money.  On 
the  deputation  ushering  itself  into  my  presence,  with 
the  view  above  stated,  I  informed  it  politely,  and  in 
the  best  German  I  could  muster,  that  I  had  already 
paid  an  extravagant  price  for  my  passage,  and  that 
I  would  see  the  deputation  fried  before  I  gave  it  a 
groschen  ;  and  soon  after  this,  the  stewards,  probably 
infected  by  some  epidemic  of  extortion  hovering  in 
the  atmosphere  of  Russia,  began  to  make  out  fabu- 
lous bills  against  the  passengers  for  bottles  of  cham- 
pagne they  had  never  -dreamt  of,  and  cups  of  coffee 
they  had  never  consumed.  And,  as  none  of  us  had 
any  Russian  money,  and  every  one  was  anxious  to 
get  rid  of  his  Prussian  thalers  and  silbergroschen, 
the  deck  was  soon  converted  into  an  animated 
money-market,  in  which  some  of  us  lost  our  temper, 
and  all  of  us  about  twenty  per  cent,  on  the  money 
we  changed. 

There  was  a  gentleman  on  board,  of  the  Hebrew 
persuasion — a  very  different  gentleman  however  from 
my  genial  friend  from  Posen,  or  from  the  merchant  in 
cat-skins  at  Stettin — who  had  brought  with  him — of 
of  all  merchandise  in  the  world ! — a  consignment  of 
three  hundred  canary-birds.  These  little  songsters 
had  been  built  up  into  quite  a  castle  of  cages,  open 
at  all  four  sides ;  the  hatches  of  the  hold  had  been 
left  open  during  the  voyage ;  and  it  was  very  pretty 


I   LAND   AT  CRONSTADT.  75 

and  pastoral  to  hear  them  executing  their  silvery 
roulades  in  the  beautiful  May  evening,  and  to  see 
the  Hebrew  gentleman  (he  wore  a  white  hat,  a  yel- 
low waistcoat,  a  drab  coat,  light-gray  trousers  and 
buff  slippers,  and,  with  his  somewhat  jaundiced  com- 
plexion, looked  not  unlike  a  canary-bird  himself,)  go 
down  the  ladder  into  the  hold,  to  feed  his  choristers 
and  converse  with  them  in  a  cheerful  and  friendly 
manner.  But  he  was  in  a  pitiable  state  of  tribula- 
tion ;  firstly,  because  he  had  learnt  that  the  customs' 
duties  on  singing  birds  in  Russia  were  enormous  ; 
and,  secondly,  because  he  had  been  told  that  Jews 
were  not  suffered  to  enter  St.  Petersburg.*  He 
turned  his  coat-collar  up,  and  pulled  his  hat  o.ver  his 
eyes  with  a  desperate  effort  to  make  himself  look 
like  a  Christian ;  but  he  only  succeeded  in  travesty- 
ing, not  in  disguising,  himself;  for,  whereas,  he  had 
looked  a  frank,  open  Jew,  say,  like  Judas  Macca- 
baBus ;  he,  now,  with  his  cowering  and  furtive  mien, 
looked  unspeakably  like  Judas  Iscariot.  He  was 
sorely  annoyed,  too,  at  the  proceedings  of  one  of  the 
policemen,  who,  having  probably  never  seen  a  cana- 
ry bird  before,  and  imagining  it  to  be  a  species  of 
wild  beast  of  a  diminutive  size,  was  performing  the 

*  I  am  not  aware  of  the  existence  of  any  Oukase  positively 
forbidding  Jews  to  settle  at  St.  Petersburg :  but  it  is  certain  that 
there  are  no  Jews  in  the  Russian  capital.  In  other  parts  of  the 
empire  a  distinction  is  made  between  the  Karaim  Jews,  who  abide 
by  the  law  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  Rabbinical  Jews,  who 
hold  by  the  Talmud.  The  former  are  tolerated  and  protected  ; 
but  the  latter  are  treated  with  great  rigour,  and  are  not  permitted 
to  settle  in  the  towns. 


76  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

feat  of  stirring  it  up  with  a  long  pole,  by  means  of  a 
tobacco  pipe,  poked  between  the  wires  of  one  of  the 
cages,  and  was  apparently  much  surprised  that  the 
little  canary  declined  singing  under  that  treatment. 
But,  courage,  my  Hebrew  friend  !  you  have  brought 
your  birds  to  a  fine  market,  even  if  you  have  to  pay 
fifty  per  cent,  ad  valorem  duty  on  them.  For,  be  it 
known,  a  canary  sells  for  twenty-five  silver  roubles 
in  Russia — for  nearly  four  pounds !  and,  as  for  a 
parrot,  I  have  heard  of  one,  and  two  hundred  roubles 
being  given  for  one,  that  could  speak  French. 

The  wag  from  the  South  of  .France  had  not  been 
idle  all  this  time.  Who  but  he  counterfeited  (while 
he  was  not  looking)  the  usage  and  bearing  of  the 
little  semi-humpbacked  policeman,  and  threw  us 
into  convulsions  of  laughter  ?  Who  but  he  pre- 
tended to  be  dreadfully  frightened  at  the  officer  in 
the  dirt-inlaid  lace,  running  away  from  him,  after 
the  manner  of  Mr.  Flexmore  the  clown,  when  he  is 
told  that  the  policeman  is  coming?  Who  but  he 
addressed  the  very  tallest  douanier  in  the  exact 
voice,  and  with  the  exact  gesture  of  the  immortal 
Punch  (at  which  we  went  into  fits,  of  course,  and 
even  the  adamantine  Miss  Wapps  condescended  to 
smile),  pouring  forth  a  flood  of  gibberish,  which  he 
declared  to  be  Russian.  The  douanier  looked  very 
ferocious,  and  I  thought  the  wag  would  have  been 
knouted  and  sent  to  Siberia;  but  he  got  over  it 
somehow,  and  gave  the  customs'  magnate  a  cigar, 
which  that  brave  proceeded,  with  great  gravity  and 
deliberation,  to  chew,  and  they  were  soon  the  best 
friends  in  the  world. 


I   LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  77 

I  was  getting  very  tired  of  assuring  myself  of  the 
shirtlessness  of  the  boarders,  whom  I  had  now  been 
inspecting  for  nearly  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  when 
Captain  Steffens  reappeared,  this  time  without  the 
telescope,  but  with  the  thirty  passports  as  usual 
fluttering  in  the  breeze,  and  a  pile  of  other  papers 
besides.  He  had  mounted  his  epaulettes  again,  had 
Captain  Steffens,  and  a  stiffer  shirt-collar  than  ever; 
and  on  his  breast  nearest  his  heart  there  shone  a 
gold  enamelled  cross  and  a  particoloured  riband, 
proclaiming  to  us  awe-stricken  passengers  and  to 
the  world  in  general,  that  Captain  Steffens  was  a 
knight  of  one  of  the  thousand  and  one  Russian 
orders.  It  might  have  been  a  Prussian  order,  you 
may  urge.  No,  no,  my  eyes  were  too  sharp  for  that. 
Young  as  I  was  to  Russia,  I  could  tell  already  a 
hawk  from  a  handsaw,  and  the  august  split  crow  of 
the  autocrat  from  the  jay-like  black  eaglet  of  Prus- 
sia. I  think  Captain  Steffens's  decoration  was  the 
fifteenth  class  of  St.  Michael  the  Moujik.  The 
chief  mate  was  also  in  full  fig;  and,  though  he 
could  boast  no  decoration,  he  had  a  tremendous  pin 
in  his  shirt,  with  a  crimson  bulb  a-top  like  a  brandy- 
ball.  And  Captain  Steffens  and  his  mate  were  both 
arrayed  in  this  astounding  costume  evidently  to  do 
honour  to  and  receive  with  respect  two  helmeted 
beings,  highly  laced,  profusely  decorated,  and  posi- 
tively clean,  who  now  boarded  the  steamer  from  a 
man-o'-war's  gig  alongside,  and  were  with  many 
bows  ushered  into  the  saloon. 

Whether  he  had  dropped  cherublike  from  aloft, 
where  he  had  been  looking  out  for  our  lives,  or  risen 


78  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

like  Venus  from  the  salt-sea  spray,  or  come  with  the 
two  helmets  in  the  gig — though  I  could  almost 
make  affidavit  that  he  was  not  in  it  when  it  rowed 
alongside, — or  boarded  the  Prussian  Eagle  in  his 
own  private  wherry,  or  risen  from  the  hold  where  he 
had  lain  concealed  during  the  voyage,  or  been  then 
and  there  incarnated  from  the  atmospheric  atoms ; 
whether  he  came  as  a  spirit  but  so  would  not  de- 
part, I  am  utterly  incapable  of  judging ;  but  this  is 
certain,  that  at  the  cabin-door  there  suddenly  ap- 
peared Mr.  Edward  'Wright,  comedian.  I  say  Mr. 
Wright  advisedly  ;  because,  although  the  apparition 
turned  out  to  be  a  Russian  to  the  back-bone,  thigh- 
bone, and  hip-bone,  and  though  his  name  was  very 
probably  Somethingovitch  or  Off,  he  had  Mr. 
Wright's  voice,  and  Mr.  Wright's  face,  together 
with  the  teeth,  eye-glass,  white  ducks,  and  little  pa- 
tent tipped  boots  of  that  favourite  actor.  And  he 
was  not  only  Mr.  Wright,  but  he  was  Mr.  Wright 
in  the  character  of  Paul  Pry — minus  the  costume, 
certainly,  but  with  the  eye-glass  and  the  umbrella  to 
the  life.  I  am  not  certain  whether  he  wore  a  white 
hat,  but  I  know  that  he  carried  a  little  locked  port- 
folio under  one  arm,  that  his  eyes  without  the  slight- 
est suspicion  of  a  squint  were  everywhere  at  once ; 
that  he  grinned  Mr.  Wright  as  Paul  Pry's  grin  in- 
cessantly ;  that  he  was  always  hoping  he  didn't  in- 
trude ;  and  that  he  did'  intrude  most  confoundedly. 

"  Police  ?  "  I  asked  the  Russian  in  a  whisper. 

My  accomplished  friend  elevated  and  then  de- 
pressed his  eyebrows  in  token  of  acquiescence,  and 
added  «  Orloff! » 


I   LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  79 

"  But  Count  Orloff  is  in  Paris,"  I  ventured  to 
remark. 

"  I  say  Orloff  when  I  speak  of  ces  gen  Id,"  an- 
swered the  Russian.  "  He  is  of  the  secret  police — 
Section  des  Etrangers — counsellor  of  a  college,  if 
you  know  what  that  is  ?  Gives  capital  dinners." 

"  Do  you  know  him  ?  " 

"  I  know  him ! "  repeated  the  Russian ;  and,  for 
the  first  time  during  our  acquaintance,  I  saw  the  ex- 
pression of  something  like  emotion  in  his  face,  and 
this  expressed  contemptuous  indignation.  "  My  dear 
sir,  we  do  not  know  ces  gen  Id,  nous  autres" 

Mr.  Wright  was  at  home  immediately.  He  shook 
hands  with  Captain  Steffens-as  if  he  would  have 
his  hand  off,  clapped  the  first  mate  on  the  shoulder ; 
who,  for  his  part,  I  grieve  to  say,  looked  as  if  he 
would  like  to  knock  his  head  off;  and  addressed  a 
few  words  in  perfect  English  to  the  nearest  passen- 
gers. Then  he  took  the  captain's  arm  quite  amica- 
bly, and  took  the  locked  portfolio  and  the  gleaming 
teeth  (they  were  not  Mr.  Carker's  teeth,  but  Mr. 
Wright's)  and  himself  into  the  saloon.  I  was  so 
fascinated  at  the  sight  of  this  smiling  banshee,  that 
I  should  have  followed  him  into  the  cabin  ;  but  the 
wary  polizeis,  who  had  already  turned  everybody 
out  of  the  saloon  in  the  most  summary,  and  not 
the  most  courteous  manner,  now  formed  a  cordon 
across  the  entrance,  and  left  us  outside  the  para- 
dise of  the  Prussian  Eagle,  like  peris  rather  than 
passengers. 

Captain  StefFens,  Mr.  Wright,  the  two  superior 
helmets,  the  thirty  passports  and  the  additional  doc- 


80  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

uments — which  I  conjecture  to  have  been  our  lives 
and  adventures  from  the  earliest  period  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  compiled  by  the  Russian  consul  at  Stettin, 
and  the  secretary  of  legation  at  Berlin,  with  notes 
by  Captain  Steffens,  and  a  glossary  by  Mr.  Wright 
— were  closeted  in  the  saloon  from  a  quarter  to  one 
to  a  quarter  to  four,  p.  M.,  by  which  time  (as  the 
"  Preussischer  Adler "  had  fulfilled  her  contract  in 
bringing  us  to  Cronstadt,  and  would  give  us  neither 
bite  nor  sup  more)  I  was  sick  with  hunger  and 
kinder  streaked  with  rage.  What  they  did  in  the 
saloon  during  this  intolerable  delay,  whether  they 
painted  miniatures  of  us  through  some  concealed 
spyhole,  or  played  upon  the  piano,  or  witnessed  a 
private  performance  of  Bombastes  Furioso  by  Mr. 
Wright,  or  went  to  sleep,  no  man  could  tell.  The 
wag  from  the  South  of  France,  who,  notwithstand- 
ing the  rigid  surveillance,  had  managed  to  creep 
round  to  the  wheel,  came  back  with  a  report  that 
the  conclave  were  drinking  champagne  and  smoking 
cigars.  The  story  was  not  unlikely ;  but  how  was 
such  an  incorrigible  joker  to  be  believed?  For  three 
hours,  then,  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to 
satisfy  myself  that  the  polizeis  were  really  shirtless, 
and  to  struggle  with  an  insane  desire  to  fly  upon 
my  portmanteau  and  open  it,  precisely  because  it 
was  sealed  up.  The  other  passengers  were  moody, 
and  my  Russian  friend  was  not  nearly  so  fond  of 
me  as  he  was  at  sea.  For,  you  must  understand, 
my  passport  was  good  to  Cronstadt ;  but  once  ar- 
rived there,  there  was  another  process  of  whitewash- 
ing to  be  gone  through  ;  and,  to  be  intimate  with  a 


I    LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  81 

man  whose  papers  might  not  be  in  rule,  might  com- 
promise even  nous  autres. 

The  port  of  Cronstadt  was  very  thronged  and  live- 
ly, and  I  feasted  my  eyes  upon  some  huge  English 
steamers  from  Hull  and  other  northern  English  ports. 
It  did  me  good  to  see  the  Union  Jack ;  but  where 
were  the  gunboats,  Mr.  Bull  ?  Ah  !  where  were  the 
gunboats  ?  Failing  these,  there  were  plenty  of  Rus- 
sian gunboats — black,  saucy,  trim,  diabolical,  little 
crafts  enough,  which  were  steaming  about  as  if  in 
search  of  some  stray  infernal  machine  that  might 
have  been  overlooked  since  the  war-time.  Far  away 
through  the  grove  of  masts,  I  could  descry  the  mon- 
archs  of  the  forest,  the  huge,  half-masted  hulks  of 
the  Russian  line-of-battle  ships.  The  stars  and 
stripes  of  the  great  American  republic  were  very 
much  to  the  fore  this  Tuesday  morning ;  and,  as  I 
found  afterwards,  the  American  element  was  what 
Americans  would  term  almighty  strong  in  Russia. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  seen  of  Cronstadt,  the 
town,  but  the  spires  of  some  churches,  some  thun- 
dering barracks,  the  dome  of  the  museum,  and  forts, 
forts,  forts.  But  Cronstadt  the  port  was  very  gay 
with  dancing  skiffs,  and  swift  men-o'-war  boats  with 
their  white-clad  crews,  and  little  coteries  of  coquet- 
tish yachts.  The  sky  was  so  bright,  the  water  so 
blue,  the  flags  so  varied,  the  yachts  so  rakish  and 
snowy-sailed,  that  I  could  have  fancied  myself  for  a 
moment  in  Kingstown  harbour,  on  my  way  to  Dub- 
lin, instead  of  St.  Petersburg,  but  for  the  forts,  forts, 
forts. 

While  I  was  viewing  these  things,  and  cursing 


82  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

Mr.  Wright,  (was  it  for  this  that  he  won  our  hearts 
at  the  Adelphi  for  so  many  years,  inveigling  us  out 
of  so  many  half-price  shillings,  and  insidiously  con- 
cealing the  fact  of  his  connection  with  Count  Orloff 
— now  Prince  Dolgorouki's  secret  police  ?)  while  I 
was  smoking  very  nearly  the  last  cigar  that  I  was  to 
smoke  in  the  open  air  so  near  St.  Petersburg,  there 
had  glided  alongside  and  nestled  under  the  shadow 
of  our  big  paddle-boxes  a  tiny  war-steamer,  or  pyro- 
scaphe,  with  a  St.  Andrew  or  blue  X  cross  on  a 
white  flag  at  her  stern,  and  another  little  flag  at  her 
fore,  compounded  of  different  crosses  and  colors,  and 
looking  curiously  like  a  Union  Jack,  though  it  wasn't 
one  by  any  means.  Nigra  fuit  sed  formosa  ;  jet 
black  was  her  hull,  but  she  was  comely-beautiful,  a 
long  lithe  lizard  carved  in  ebony,  with  an  ivory 
streak  on  her  back,  (that  was  her  deck,)  and  gliding 
almost  noiselessly  over  the  water.  She  looked  not 
so  much  like  a  steamer  as  like  the  toy  model  of  one 
seen  through  a  powerful  opera-glass  ;  and  her  wheel 
and  compass,  and  spider-web  rigging,  and  shining 
brass  bolts,  and  bees'-waxed  blocks,  would  have  looked 
far  more  in  place  in  the  toyman's  window  in  Fleet 
Street,  London,  than  in  this  grim  Cronstadt.  She 
had  her  little  murder-popguns  though — tapering  little 
brass  playthings,  such  as  you  may  see  by  dozens  in 
a  basket,  marked  eightpence  each,  in  the  same  toy- 
shop window.  This  was  a  Russian-built  boat,  with 
Russian  engines,  engineers,  and  crew,  and  she  seemed 
to  say  to  me  mockingly :  "  Ah  !  we  have  no  war- 
steamers,  haven't  we?  we  are  dependent  upon  Eng- 
land for  our  machinery,  are  we  ?  Wait  a  bit ! " 


I   LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  83 

She  was,  in  truth,  as  crack  a  piece  of  naval  goods 
as  I — not  being  a  judge — could  wish  to  see.  She 
had  a  full  crew  of  fine  hardy  fellows,  spotlessly 
clean,  and  attired  from  head  to  foot  in  white  duck. 
They  were  strapping,  tawny,  moustachioed  men ; 
mostly,  I  was  told,  Fins.  Your  true  Russian  is  no 
sailor  ;  though  you  may  teach  him  to  row,  reef,  and 
steer,  as  you  may  teach  him  to  dance  on  the  tight- 
rope. On  the  paddle-bridge  there  was  an  arm-chair, 
covered  with  crimson  velvet,  and  in  it,  with  his  feet 
on  a  footstool,  covered  with  the  same  material,  sat 
the  commander  of  the  steamer.  He  was  puffing  a 
paper  cigar ;  he  was  moustachioed  and  whiskered 
like  a  life-guardsman ;  he  was  epauletted  and  be- 
laced  ;  he  was  crossed  and  medalled  for  his  services 
at  the  siege  of  Belleisle,  doubtless ;  he  had  spotless 
white  trousers  tightly  strapped  over  his  patent-leather 
boots ;  but  he  had  not  a  pair  of  spurs,  though  I 
looked  for  them  attentively;  and  those  who  state 
that  such  ornaments  exist  on  the  heels  of  Russian 
naval  officers  are  calumniators.  Instead  of  a  sword, 
he  wore  a  dirk  at  his  side,  with  a  gold  and  ivory  hilt, 
very  tasteful  and  shipshape ;  and,  at  the  stern  of  the 
vessel  there  stood,  motionless  and  rigid,  a  long  man, 
with  a  drooping  moustache  like  an  artist's  Sweet- 
ener, with  a  thoroughly  Tartar  face,  and  clad  in  the 
eternal  coarse  gray  sack,  who,  they  said,  was  a  mid- 
shipman. He  had  a  huge  hour-glass  before  him, 
and  two  smaller  quarter-hour  glasses,  which  he 
turned  with  grave  composure  when  the  sand  had 
run  out. 

On  the  deck  of  an  adjacent  lighter  I  could  see, 


84  A   JOURNEY   DUE    NORTH. 

for  the  first  time,  the  genuine  Russian  national  cos- 
tume, on  a  score  of  stalwart,  bearded  men,  clad  in 
an  almost  brimless  felt  hat,  (not  unlike  that  patron- 
ized by  the  Connaught  bog-trotters,)  a  sheepskin 
coat,  with  the  skinny  side  out  and  the  woolly  side 
in,  (Mr.  Brian  O' Lynn's  favourite  wear,  and  which 
he  declared  to  be  mighty  convaniant,)  baggy  breeches, 
apparently  of  bedticking,  and  long,  clumsy,  thick- 
soled  boots  of  leather,  innocent  of  blacking,  and  worn 
outside  the  trousers.  These  poor  devils  had  been 
lading  a  dutch  galliot,  and  it  being  dinner-hour,  I 
suppose  had  knocked  off  work,  and  were  lying  dead 
asleep  in  all  sorts  of  wonderful  positions.  Prone  to 
the  deck  on  the  stomach,  with  the  hands  and  legs 
stretched  out  like  so  many  turtle,  seemed  to  be  the 
favourite  posture  for  repose.  But  one  gentleman, 
lying  on  his  back,  presented  himself  to  my  view  in 
a  most  marvellous  state  of  foreshortening — leaving 
nothing  visible  to  me  but  the  soles  of  his  boots,  the 
convexity  of  his  stomach,  and  the  tip  of  his  nose. 
By  and  by  their  time  for  turning  to  again  came ; 
and,  when  I  saw  the  mate  or  foreman — or  whatever 
else  he  was — of  the  gang,  step  among  them  with  a 
long  twisted  ratan,  like  that  of  the  jailer  in  the 
Bridewell  scene  of  the  Harlot's  Progress,  and  re- 
rriind  them  that  it  was  time  to  go  to  work,  by  the 
gentle  means  of  striking,  kicking,  and  all  but  jump- 
ing on  them,  I  received  my  first  lesson,  that  I  was 
in  a  country  where  flesh  and  blood  are  cheaper — 
much  cheaper — than  gentle  Thomas  Hood  ever  wot- 
ted of. 

We   had   been  in  our  floating  prison  with   the 


I   LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  85 

chance  of  being  drowned,  three  hours  in  addition  to 
the  seventy-three  we  had  consumed  in  coming  from 
Stettin,  when  the  door  of  the  saloon  was  flung  wide 
open,  and  a  polizei,  seemingly  seized  with  insanity, 
began  frantically  vociferating  "  Voyageur  passport  ! 
Passport  voyageur  !  "  at  the  very  top  of  his  voice  ; 
which  cries  he  continued  without  intermission  till  he 
either  ran  down,  like  a  clock,  or  was  threatened  by 
a  discreet  and  scandalized  corporal  with  the  disci- 
plinary application  of  the  stick  if  he  did  not  desist. 
Poor  fellow  !  this  was,  very  likely,  all  the  French  he 
knew,  and  he  was  proud  of  it!  Taking  this  as  a 
gentle  hint  that  we  were  to  enter  the  saloon  for  pass- 
port purposes,  we  all  poured  into  that  apartment 
pele  mele  like  your  honourable  house  to  the  bar  of 
the  Lords.  And  here  we  found  several  empty  bot- 
tles and  a  strong  smell  of  cigar-smoke,  which  rather 
bore  out  the  wag's  story  of  the  champagne  and 
cigars ;  and,  sitting  at  a  table,  Mr.  Wright,  more 
toothy  than  ever,  the  captain,  the  helmets,  and  some- 
body else  we  little  expected  to  see. 

There  were  only  twenty-nine  passengers  standing 
round  the  table.  Dp  you  understand  now  ?  The 
thirtieth  passenger  was  one  of  the  lot — one  of  ces 
gens-Id — one  of  Count  Orloff's  merry  men.  So,  at 
least,  I  conjecture,  for  he  was  the  somebody  else  at 
the  table,  and  he  asked  me,  with  all  the  coolness  in 
the  world — when  my  turn  came,  and  as  if  he  had 
never  seen  me  before  in  his  life — what  my  object  in 
coming  to  Russia  might  be  ?  I  told  him  that  I  voy- 
aged pour  mon  plaisir,  at  which  reply  he  seemed  but 
moderately  satisfied,  and  made  a  neat  note  of  it  on 


86  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

a  sprawling  sheet  of  paper.  I  had  noticed  that  he 
had  been  very  taciturn,  and,  as  I  thought,  deaf,  dur- 
ing our  passage — a  white-faced  hound ! — but  that  he 
took  to  his  victuals  and  drink  very  kindly;  and  this 
was  his  object  for  coming  to  Russia.  Of  course,  a 
Russian  government  employe  may  travel  for  his 
pleasure,  like  other  folks ;  especially  on  a  probable 
salary  of  about  forty  pounds  a  year;  and  this  pale 
functionary  may  have  been  returning  from  the  baths 
of  Spa  or  Wildbad ;  but  it  was  very  suspicious.  I 
wonder  how  much  he  paid  for  his  passage ! 

We  did  not  get  our  passports  back  yet — oh  no ! 
but  each  traveller  received  a  card  on  which  was  a 
big  seal,  in  very  coarse  red  wax,  bearing  the  impress 
of  the  everlasting  double  eagle,  and  this  was  our 
passport  from  Cronstadt  to  Petersburg  town.  Very 
speedily  and  gladly  we  bade  a  long,  long  farewell  to 
the  «  Preussischer  Adler "  and  Captain  Steffens ; 
and,  giving  up  our  sealing-wax  passports,  stepped 
on  board  the  pyroscaphe.  She  had  her  name  in  gilt 
capitals  on  her  paddle-boxes ;  but  I  could  not  spell 
Russian  then,  and  so  remained  ignorant  on  that  sub- 
ject. I  ought  not  to  omit  stating  that  Mr.  Wright 
— after  telling  us  in  a  jaunty  manner,  that  it  was 
beautiful  weather,  beautiful  weather,  and  that  we  had 
had  a  charming  passage — disappeared.  He  did  not 
remain  in  the  saloon,  and  he  did  not  come  with  us. 
Perhaps  he  returned  aloft  to  resume  his  cherub  du- 
ties, or  floated  away,  or  melted  away,  or  sank  away. 
At  all  events,  he  went  right  away  somewhere,  and  I 
saw  him  no  more. 

During  the  three  hours  the  pyroscaphe  had  been 


I   LAND    AT   CRONSTADT.  87 

lying  alongside  the  "  Preussischer  Adler,"  there  had 
been  a  long  plank,  neatly  carpeted,  sloping  from  the 
gangway  of  one  vessel  to  that  of  the  other.  The 
sight  of  this  plank,  all  ready  for  walking  upon,  and 
yet  tabooed  to  mortal  footsteps,  had  tantalized  and 
riled  us  not  a  little.  On  the  bulwark  of  the  Adler 
there  had  been  laid,  at  right  angles  to  it  but  also 
sloping  downwards,  a  long,  heavyish  beam  of  wood 
painted  in  alternate  black  and  white  streaks,  which 
was  to  serve  as  a  hand-rail  for  the  ladies  when  they 
made  the  descensus  Averni.  The  opposite  extremity 
of  this  beam  was  held  by  a  Russian  man-of-war's  man 
on  the  pyroscaphe's  deck ;  a  thick-set,  mustachioed 
lout  in  white-duck  cap,  frock,  and  trousers.  He 
held  the  beam  in  one  hand,  and  supported  his  elbow 
with  the  other ;  and  there  and  thus  I  declare  he  held 
it  during  three  mortal  hours.  It  would  have  been 
about  as  easy  for  him  to  stand  on  one  leg  during 
that  period.  I  lost  sight  of  him  occasionally,  as  I 
paced  to  and  fro  on  the  deck  ;  but,  when  I  returned, 
he  was  always  in  the  same  position — stiff,  motion- 
less, impassible,  with  the  beam  in  his  right  hand  and 
his  elbow  in  his  left.  I  do  not  know  what  amount 
of  stick  would  have  fallen  to  this  poor  fellow's  share 
if  he  had  flinched  or  stumbled  ;  but,  when  I  tried  to 
picture  to  myself  an  English,  a  French,  or  an  Amer- 
ican sailor  in  a  similar  position,  I  could  not  help  ad- 
mitting that  Russia  is  a  country  where  discipline  is 
understood,  not  only  in  theory,  but  in  practice. 

The  interior  of  the  pyroscaphe  did  not  belie  her 
exterior.  She  was  appointed  throughout  like  an 
English  nobleman's  yacht.  There  was  a  tiny  saloon 


A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

with  rosewood  fixings,  distemper  paintings  in  gilt 
frames,  damask  hangings,  held  up  by  ormolu  Cu- 
pids, and  mirrors  galore  for  the  fair  ladies  to  admire 
themselves  in.  The  little  French  actress  immedi- 
ately converted  one  of  them  into  the  prettiest  pic- 
ture frame  you  would  desire  to  see  in  or  out  of 
Russia;  and,  leaving  Miss  Wapps  to  inspect  her 
blue-bronzed  nose  in  another,  I  went  on  deck,  where 
there  were  benches  on  bronzed  legs  and  covered 
with  crimson  velvet,  and  camp-stools  with  seats 
worked  in  Berlin  wool.  I  have  been  told  that  the 
officers  of  the  Russian  navy  have  a  pretty  talent  in 
that  genre  of  needlework.  My  Russian  friend — 
who  by  this  time  had  utterly  forgotten  (so  it  seemed) 
my  existence — had  found  a  friend  of  his  in  the  per- 
son of  the  commander  of  the  steamer,  and  the  pair 
had  retired  to  that  officer's  private  cabin  to  drink 
champagne.  Always  champagne.  I  noticed  that 
when  they  recognized  each  other  at  first,  it  was 
(oddly  enough)  in  the  French  language  that  their 
salutations  were  interchanged. 

We  were  yet  in  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  and  the 
canal  of  the  Neva  was  still  far  off,  when  Captain 
Smith — who,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  gone  over 
to  the  enemy,  or  Wapps  faction — came  over  to  me 
with  overtures  of  peace.  He  had  somehow  man- 
aged to  save  those  boots  of  his  out  of  the  general 
confiscation  wreck,  and  carried  them  now  like  buck- 
ets. He  had  his  reasons  for  an  armistice,  the  cap- 
tain ;  for  he  remarked  that  we  might  be  of  great 
service  to  one  another  in  the  Custom-house.  "  You 
help  me,  and  I'll  help  you,"  said  Captain  Smith. 


I  LAND   AT  CRONSTADT.  89 

This  was  all  very  fair  and  liberal,  and  on  the  live 
and  let  live  principle,  which  I  heartily  admire  ;  but, 
when  the  captain  proffered  a  suggestion  that  I 
should  help  him  by  carrying  the  abhorred  boots 
with  the  sheepskin  linings,  and  proceeded  to  yoke 
me  with  them,  milkman  fashion,  I  resisted,  and  told 
him,  like  Gregory,  that  I'd  not  carry  coals — nay,  nor 
boots  either.  On  this  he  went  on  another  tack : 
and,  conveying  me  to  a  secret  place  under  the  com- 
panion ladder,  earnestly  entreated  me  to  conceal,  on 
his  behalf,  underneath  my  waistcoat,  a  roll  of  very 
sleezy  sky-blue  merino,  which  he  assured  me  was 
for  a  dress  for  his  little  daughter  Gretchen,  and 
which  he  had  hitherto  concealed  in  the  mysterious 
boots.  I  must  say  that  the  sky-blue  merino  did  not 
look  very  valuable :  I  don't  think,  in  fact,  that  it 
was  worth  much  more  than  a  "tarn ;  "  and  I  did  not 
relish  the  idea  of  becoming  an  amateur  smuggler  on 
other  merchant's  account.  But  what  was  I  to  do  ? 
The  captain  was  a  bore,  but  the  father  had  a  claim 
to  my  services.  It  was  pleasant,  besides,  to  think 
.that  the  captain  had  a  daughter  at  all — a  bright- 
eyed  little  maid,  with  soft  brown  hair,  perhaps  ;  and 
I  pictured  her  to  myself  in  the  sky-blue  merino,  sit- 
ting on  the  captain's  knee,  while  that  giant  mariner 
told  her  stories  of  his  voyages  on  the  salt  seas,  and 
forbore  in  love  from  saying  anything  about  the  per- 
ilous ice  and  the  magnetic  islands;  nay,  glossed 
over  his  shipwreck  off  the  Isle  of  Weasel,  and  made 
out  the  supercargo  to  be  an  angel  of  light  rather 
than  a  "tarn  tief."  So  I  smuggled  Captain  Smith's 
sky-blue  merino  through  the  Custom-house  for  him  ; 


90  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

and  if  I  had  no  sorer  sin  than  that  on  my  conscience, 
I  should  go  to  bed  with  a  light  heart  to-night. 

In  gratitude  for  this  concession  the  captain  pro- 
posed a  drink,  to  which  I  nothing  loth — for  I  was 
quite  faint  with  the  heat  and  delay — consented.  The 
refreshment-room  was  a  little  mahogany  box  below, 
with  a  cut-glass  chandelier  hanging  from  the  ceil- 
ing, about  half-a-dozen  sizes  too  large  for  the  apart- 
ment. There  was  a  bar  covered  with  marble,  and  a 
grave  waiter  in  black,  with  a  white  neckcloth  and 
white  gloves :  a  waiter  who  looked  as  if,  for  private 
or  political  reasons,  he  was  content  to  hand  round 
schnapps,  but  that  he  could  be  an  ambassador  if  he 
chose.  There  was  a  bar-keeper,  whose  stock  of 
French  was  restricted  to  these  three  words,  Eau-de- 
vie  ,  Moossoo,  and  Rouble-argent.  He  made  liberal 
use  of  these ;  and  I  remarked  that,  although  it  was 
such  a  handsome  pyroscaphe  with  a  chandelier  and 
camp  stools  worked  in  Berlin  wool,  the  bar-keeper 
took  very  good  care  to  have  the  rouble-argent  in  his 
hand,  before  he  delivered  the  Eau-de-vie  to  a  Moos- 
soo.  Paying  beforehand  is  the  rule  in  Russia,  and 
this  is  why  the  Russians  are  such  bad  paymasters. 
The  little  mahogany  box  is  crammed  with  passen- 
gers, talking,  laughing,  and  shaking  hands  with  each 
other  in  pure  good-nature,  as  men  will  do  when 
they  come  to  the  end  of  a  tedious  journey.  The 
wag  from  the  south  of  France  was  in  immense 
force,  and  incessantly  ejaculated  "  Vodki !  Vodki!" 
capering  about  with  a  glass  of  that  liquor  in  his 
hand,  and  drinking  and  hobnobbing  with  everybody. 


I   LAND   AT   CKONSTADT.  91 

I  tried  a  glass  of  vodki,*  and  immediately  under- 
stood what  genuine  blue  rain  was.  For  this  Vodki 
was  bright  blue,  and  it  tasted — ugh !  of  what  did  it 
not  taste  ?  Bilge-water,  vitriol,  turpentine,  copal- 
varnish,  fire,  and  castor-oil!  There  was  cham- 
pagne, and  there  was  Lafitte,  too,  to  be  had,  Cog- 
nac, brantewein,  schnapps,  aniseed  (of  which  the 
Russians  are  immoderately  fond),  and  an  infinity  of 
butter-brods  spread  with  caviare — no  more,  no  more 
of  that ! — dried  belouga,  smoked  salmon,  cold  veal, 
bacon,  sardines,  and  tongue.  I  don't  know  the 
exact  figures  of  the  tariff  of  prices  ;  but  I  know 
that  there  was  never  any  change  out  of  a  silver 
rouble. 

In  this  convivial  little  den,  Captain  Smith  in  his 
turn  found  a  friend.  This  was  no  other  than  Peter- 
sen  ;  and  nothing  would  serve  Captain  Smith,  but 
that  I  must  be  introduced  to  Petersen.  "  De  agent 
vor  de  gompany  that  used  do  go  do  Helsingfors,"  he 
whispered.  What  company,  and  what  the  deuce 
had  I  to  do  with  the  gompany,  or  with  Petersen  ? 
However,  there  was  no  help  for  it,  and  I  was  in- 
troduced. Petersen,  daguerreotyped,  would  have 
passed  very  well  for  the  likeness  of  Mr.  Nobody ;  for 
his  large  head  was  joined  to  his  long  legs,  with  no 
perceptible  torso,  and  with  only  a  very  narrow  inter- 
val or  belt  of  red  plush  waistcoat  between.  He 
had  the  face  of  a  fox  who  was  determined  to  be 
clean  shaved  or  to  die ;  and,  indeed,  there  was  not  a 
hair  left  on  his  face,  but  he  had  gashed  himself  ter- 

*  Or  Vodka,  both  terminations  seem  to  be  used  indifferently. 


92  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

ribly  in  the  operation,  and  his  copper  skin  was  laced 
with  his  red  oxide  of  lead  blood.  He  had  a  hat  so 
huge  and  so  furry  in  nap,  that  he  looked  with  it  on 
like  the  Lord  Mayor's  sword-bearer,  and  he  may, 
indeed,  have  been  the  mysterious  Sword-bearer's 
young  man,  of  whom  we  heard  so  much  during 
the  sittings  of  the  City  Corporation  Commission. 
When  I  was  introduced  to  him  as  "  Mister  aus 
England,"  (which  was  all  Captain  Smith  knew  of 
my  name),  he  opened  his  wide  mouth,  and  stared  at 
me  with  his  fishy  spherical  eyes  with  such  intensity, 
that  I  fancied  that  the  sockets  were  popguns,  and 
that  he  meant  to  shoot  the  aqueous  globes  against 
me.  The  open  mouth,  I  think,  really  meant  some- 
thing, signifying  that  Petersen  was  hungry,  and 
desired  meat ;  for  the  Captain  immediately  after- 
wards whispered  to  me  that  we  had  better  offer 
Petersen  a  beefsteak.  Why  any  breakfast  of  mine 
should  be  offered  to  Petersen  I  know  no  more  than 
why  the  celebrated  Oozly  bird  should  hide  his  head 
in  the  sand,  and  whistle  through  the  nape  of  his 
neck;  but  I  was  stupefied,  dazed  with  the  vodki 
and  the  chandelier,  the  confusion  of  tongues,  and 
Petersen's  eyes  and  hat,  and  I  nodded  dully  in  con- 
sent. A  beefsteak  in  Russia  means  meat  and  po- 
tatoes, and  bread,  cheese,  a  bottle  of  Moscow 
beer,  and  any  pretty  little  tiny  kickshaws  in  the  way 
of  pastry  that  may  strike  William  Cook.  Petersen, 
who  had  accepted  the  offer  by  lifting  the  sword- 
bearer's  hat,  began  snapping  up  the  food  like  a 
kingfisher;  and  as  regards  the  payment,  that  we 
(Captain  Smith  being  busily  engaged  somewhere 


I  LAND   AT   CRONSTADT.  93 

else  with  his  boots)  turned  out  to  be  me,  and 
amounted  to  a  silver  rouble.  Three  and  threepence 
for  Petersen !  He  was  to  give  me  some  valuable 
information  about  hotels,  and  so  forth,  Petersen ; 
but  his  mouth  was  too  full  for  him  to  speak.  He 
changed  some  money  for  me,  however,  and  gave 
me,  for  my  remaining  thalers,  a  greasy  Russian 
rouble  note,  and  some  battered  copecks.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  Petersen  benefited  by  this 
transaction  considerably. 

All  at  once  there  was  a  cry  from  the  passengers 
above,  of  "  Isaacs !  Isaacs  !  "  and,  leaving  Petersen 
still  wolfing  my  beefsteak,  I  hastened  on  deck.  We 
had  entered  long  since  the  canal  of  the  broad,  shal- 
low, false,  shining,  silvery  Neva,  in  which  the  only 
navigable  channel  was  marked  out  by  flags.  We 
had  left  on  our  right  hand  the  palaces  of  Oranien- 
baum  and  Petergoff,  and  now  we  saw  right  ahead, 
flashing  in  the  sun  like  the  orb  of  a  king,  the  bur- 
nished dome  of  the  great  cathedral  of  St.  Izak. 
Then  the  vast  workshops  and  ship-building  yards  of 
Mr.  Baird ;  then  immense  tallow  warehouses,  (look- 
ing like  forts  again,)  and  then,  starting  up  on  every 
side,  not  by  twos  or  threes,  but  by  scores,  and  start- 
ing up,  as  if  by  magic,  the  golden  spires  and  domes 
of  Petersburg! 

I  say  starting  up  :  it  is  the  only  word.  Some 
half-dozen  years  ago  I  was  silly  enough  to  go  up  in 
a  balloon,  which,  bursting  at  the  altitude  of  a  mile, 
sent  its  passengers  down  again.  We  fell  over  Ful- 
ham ;  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  agonizing  distinct- 
ness with  which  houses,  chimneys,  churches  seemed 


94  A  JOUKNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

rushing  up  to  us  instead  of  we  coming  down  to 
them.  I  specially  remember  Fulham  church  steeple, 
on  which  I  expected  every  moment  to  be  transfixed. 
Now,  though  the  plane  was  horizontal,  not  vertical, 
the  effect  was  exactly  similar ;  and,  as  if  from  the 
bosom  of  the  Neva,  the  churches  and  palaces  started 
up. 

We  went,  straight  as  an  arrow  from  a  Tartar's 
bow,  into  the  very  heart  of  the  city.  No  suburbs, 
no  streets  gradually  growing  upon  you,  no  buildings 
gradually  increasing  in  density.  We  were  there; 
alongside  the  English  quay,  in  sight  of  the  Custom- 
house and  Exchange,  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the 
Winter  Palace,  hard  by  the  colossal  statue  of  Peter 
the  Great,  nearly  opposite  the  senate  and  the  Saint 
Synode,  close  to  the  ministry  of  war,  within  view 
of  the  Admiralty,  and  under  the  guns  of  the  fortress, 
before  you  could  say  Jack  Robinson. 

The  English  quay  ?  Could  this  be  Russia  ?  Pal- 
aces, villas,  Corinthian  columns,  elegantly-dressed 
ladies  with  parasols  and  lapdogs,  and  children  gaz- 
ing at  us  from  the  quay,  handsome  equipages,  cur- 
vetting cavaliers,  and  the  notes  of  a  military  band 
floating  on  the  air.  Yes  :  this  was  Russia ;  and 
England  was  fifteen  hundred  real,  and  fifteen  thou- 
sand moral,  miles  off. 

The  handsome  granite  quays  and  elegantly-dressed 
ladies  were  not  for  us  to  walk  on  or  with  just  yet. 
A  double  line  of  police  sentries  extended  from  a 
little  pavilion  in  which  we  landed  to  a  low  white- 
washed archway  on  the  other  side  of  the  quay, 
from  which  a  flight  of  stone  steps  led  apparently 


I  PASS  THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  95 

into  a  range  of  cellars.  Walking,  tired -and  dusty, 
through  this  lane  of  stern  policemen  (Liberty  and 
the  ladies  peeping  at  us  over  the  shoulders  of  the 
polizeis,)  I  could  not  resist  an  odd  feeling  that  I 
had  come  in  the  van  from  the  house  of  detention  at 
Cronstadt  to  the  county  gaol  at  Petersburg,  and 
that  I  was  down  for  three  months,  with  hard  labour ; 
the  last  week  solitary.  Curiously  enough,  at  balls, 
soirees,  and  suppers,  at  St.  Petersburg,  at  Moscow, 
in  town  and  country,  I  could  never  divest  myself 
of  that  county-gaol  feeling  till  I  got  my  discharge 
at  Cronstadt  again,  three  months  afterwards. 


IV. 


I   PASS   THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE,   AND   TAKE   MY   FIRST 
RUSSIAN   WALK. 

SCHINDERHANNES,  the  renowned  robber  of  the 
Rhine,  once  encountered,  so  the  story  goes,  in  a 
foraging  expedition  between  Mayence  and  Frank- 
fort, a  caravan  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  Jews.  It  was 
a  bitter  January  night :  snow  twelve  inches  deep  on 
the  ground,  and  Schinderhannes  didn't  like  Jews. 
And  so,  in  this  manner,  did  he  evilly  entreat  them. 
He  did  not  slay  them,  nor  skin  them,  nor  extract 
their  teeth,  as  did  King  John;  but  he  compelled 
every  man  Moses  of  them  to  take  off  his  boots  or 


96  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

shoes.  These  he  mixed,  pell-mell,  into  a  leathern 
salad,  or  boot-heap,  and  at  daybreak,  but  not  before, 
he  permitted  the  poor  frost-bitten  rogues  to  find 
their  chaussures,  if  they  could.  Setting  aside  the 
superhuman  difficulty  of  picking  out  one's  own 
particular  boots  among  three  hundred  foot  cover- 
ings, the  subtle  Schinderhannes  had  reckoned,  with 
fiendish  ingenuity,  on  the  natural  acquisitiveness  of 
the  Jewish  race.  Of  course  every  Hebrew  instinc- 
tively sought  for  the  boots  with  the  best  soles  and 
upper-leathers,  and  stoutly  claimed  them  as  his 
own ;  men  who  had  never  possessed  any  thing  bet- 
ter than  a  pair  of  squashy  pumps,  down  at  heel, 
and  bulging  at  the  sides,  vehemently  declared  them- 
selves the  rightful  owners  of  brave  jack-boots  with 
triple  rows  of  nails  ;  and  the  real  proprietors,  show- 
ing themselves  recalcitrant  at  this  new  application 
of  the  law  of  meum  and  tuum,  the  consequence  was 
a  frightful  uproar  and  contention  : — such  a  fighting 
and  squabbling,  such  a  shrieking  and  swearing  in 
bad  Hebrew  and  worse  German,  such  a  rending  of 
gabardines  and  tearing  of  beards,  and  clawing  of 
hooked  noses,  had  never  been  in  Jewry,  since  the 
days  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram.  A  friend  of 
mine  told  me  that  he  once  saw  the  same  experiment 
tried  in  a  Parisian  violon,  or  lock-up  house,  after  a 
bal  masqug.  The  incarcerated  postilions  du  Long- 
jumeau,  titis,  debardeurs,  Robinson  Crusoes,  and 
forts  de  la  halle  becoming  uproarious  and  kicking  at 
the  iron-stanchioned  door,  the  sergents  de  ville  en- 
tered the  cell,  and  unbooted  every  living  prisoner. 
And  such  a  scene  there  was  in  the  morning  in  the 


I  PASS  THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  97 

yard  of  the  poste,  before  the  masqueraders  went  to 
pay  their  respects  to  the  Commissary  of  Police,  that 
Monsieur  Gavarni  might  describe  it  with  his  pencil, 
but  not  I,  surely,  with  my  pen ! 

I  have  related  this  little  apologue  to  illustrate  the 
characteristic,  but   unpleasant,   proceedings   of  the 
Russian  custom-house  officers,  when  we  had  given 
up  our  keys,  in  one  of  the  white-washed  cellars  on 
the  basement  of  a  building  on  the  INGLISKAIA 
NABEREJENAIA,  or  English   Quay,  and  when 
those  officials  proceeded  to  the  examination  of  our 
luggage.     Either  they  had  read  Mr.  Leitch  Ritchie's 
Life  of  Schinderhannes,  or  they  had  an  intuitive  per- 
ception of  the  modus  agendi  of  the  Robbers  of  the 
Rhine,  or  they  had  some  masonic  sympathy  with 
the  Parisian  police  agents;  for  such  a  turning  up 
of  boxes  and   turning  out  of  their   contents,  and 
mixture  of  their  severalties,  pell-mell,  higgledy-pig- 
gledy, helter-skelter,  jerry-cum-tumble,  butter  upon 
bacon,  topsy-turvy,  muck,  mess,  and  muddle,  I  never 
saw  in  my  life.     There  was  a  villanous  douanier, 
who  held  a  bandbox  under  one  arm,  and  seemed 
desirous  of  emulating  the  popular  hattrick  of  Herr 
Dobler ;    for  he   kept  up   a   continual    cascade   of 
gloves,  collars,  eau-de-Cologne  bottles,  combs,  hair- 
brushes, guide-books,  pincushions,  and  lace  cuffs,  till 
I  turned  to  look  for  the  accomplice  who  was  supply- 
ing him  with  fresh  bandboxes.     Now,  the  custom- 
house officers  of  every  nation  I  have  yet  travelled 
through,  have  a  different  manner  of  examining  your 
luggage.    Your  crusty,  phlegmatic  Englishman  turns 
over   each   article   separately  but   carefully.     Your 
5 


98  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

stupid  Belgian  rummages  your  trunk,  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  catch  a  lizard ;  your  courteous  Frenchman 
either  lightly  and  gracefully  turns  up  your  fine  linen, 
as  though  he  were  making  a  lobster  salad,  or — much 
more  frequently — if  you  tell  him  you  have  nothing 
to  declare,  and  are  polite  to  him,  just  peeps  into  one 
corner  of  your  portmanteau,  and  says,  C'est  assez  ! 
Your  sententious  German  ponders  deeply  over  your 
trunk,  pokes  his  fat  forefinger  into  the  bosom  of 
your  dress-shirts,  and  motions  you  to  shut  it  again. 
But  none  of  these  peculiarities  had  the  Russians. 
They  had  a  way  of  their  own.  They  twisted,  they 
tousted,  they  turned  over,  they  held  writing-cases 
open,  bottom  upwards,  and  shook  out  the  manu- 
script contents,  like  snow-flakes.  They  held  up 
coats  and  shirts,  and  examined  them  like  pawn- 
brokers. They  fingered  ladies'  dresses  like  Jew 
clothesmen.  They  punched  hats,  and  looked  into 
their  linings ;  passed  Cashmere  shawls  from  one  to 
the  other  for  inspection  ;  opened  letters,  and  tried  to 
read  their  contents,  (upside  down,)  drew  silk  stock- 
ings over  their  arms  ;  held  boots  by  the  toes,  and 
shook  them  ;  opened  bottles,  and  closed  them  again 
with  the  wrong  corks  ;  left  the  impress  of  their  dirty 
hands  upon  clean  linen,  and  virgin  writing-papers ; 
crammed  ladies'  under-garments  into  gentlemen's 
carpet-bags,  forced  a  boot-jack  into  the  little  French 
actress's  reticule,  dropped  things  under  foot,  trod  on 
them,  tore  them,  and  laughed,  spilt  eau-de-Cologne, 
greased  silk  with  pomatum,  forced  hinges,  sprained 
locks,  ruined  springs,  broke  cigars,  rumpled  muslin, 
and  raised  a  cloud  of  puff-powder  and  dentrifice. 


I   PASS  THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  99 

And  all  this  was  done,  perhaps  not  wantonly,  per- 
haps only  in  ignorant  savagery ;  but,  with  such  a 
reckless  want  of  the  commonest  care ;  with  such  a 
hideous  vicarme  of  shouting,  screaming,  trampling, 
and  plunging,  that  the  only  light  I  could  view  the 
scene  in — besides  the  Schinderhannes  one — was  in 
the  improbable  event  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  KEELEY  trav- 
elling through  the  country  of  the  Patagonians,  fall- 
ing into  a  gigantic  ambuscade,  and  having  their 
theatrical  wardrobe  overhauled  by  those  overgrown 
savages. 

Yet  I  was  given  to  understand  that  the  search 
was  by  no  means  so  strict  as  it  had  habitually  been 
in  former  years.  Special  instructions  had  even  been 
issued  by  the  government,  that  travellers  were  to  be 
subjected  to  as  little  annoyance  and  delay  in  passing 
through  the  custom-house  as  were  possible.  That 
some  rigour  of  scrutiny  is  necessary,  and  must  be 
expected,  I  am  not  going,  for  one  moment,  to  deny  : 
the  great  object  of  the  search  being  to  discover  books 
prohibited  by  the  censure,  and  Russian  bank-notes 
— genuine  or  forged  (for  the  importation  or  exporta- 
tion of  even  good  notes  is  illegal,  and  severely  pun- 
ished.) Touching  the  books,  the  Russian  govern- 
ment is  wise.  Jl  est  dans  son  droit.  One  volume 
of  Mr.  CARLYLE  would  do  more  harm  to  the  exist- 
ing state  of  things  than  millions  of  spurious  paper 
roubles.  Not  but.  what  the  most  jealous  watchful- 
ness is  justifiable  in  the  detection  of  forged  notes, 
and  the  prevention  of  the  real  ones  leaving  the 
country,  as  models  for  forgery.  The  paper  currency 
is  enormous ;  there  is  nothing  very  peculiar  about 


100  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  paper  of  the  note,  and,  though  its  chalcography 
is  sufficiently  complicated,  and  the  dreadful  pains 
and  penalties  denounced  against  the  forgers,  and 
the  holders  of  forged  notes,  are  repeated  no  less 
than  three  times  in  successively  diminishing  Rus- 
sian characters  on  the  back  ;  the  last  repetition 
being  literally  microscopic ;  it  is  all  plain  sailing  in 
printing  and  engraving,  and  there  are  few  clever 
English  or  French  engravers,  who  would  have  any 
difficulty  in  producing  an  exact  copy  of  the  "  Gossu- 
claria  Kredlt  Billiet "  of  all  the  Russias.  I  have 
been  told  by  government  employes,  and  bankers' 
clerks,  that  they  can  detect  a  bad  bank-note  im- 
mediately and  by  the  mere  sense  of  touch  ;  but  I 
apprehend  that  the  chief  test  of  genuineness  is  in 
the  state  into  which  every  note  passes  after  it  has 
been  for  any  time  in  circulation  ;  intolerable  greasi- 
ness  and  raggedness.  The  mass  of  the  people  are 
so  grossly  ignorant,  that  the  note  might  as  well  be 
printed  in  Sanscrit  as  in  Russ  for  them :  they  cannot 
even  decipher  the  figures,  and  it  is  only  by  the  colour 
of  the  note  that  an  Ischvostchik  or  a  Moujik  is  able 
to  tell  you  its  value. 

Among  the  hecatomb  of  luggage  that  had  been 
brought  from  the  deck  of  the  pyroscaph  into  this 
cave  of  Trophonius,  I  had  looked  for  some  time 
vainly,  for  any  thing  belonging  to  me,  one  glimpse 
indeed  I  caught  of  my  courier's  bag,  skimmering 
through  the  air  like  a  bird,  and  then  all  resolved 
itself  into  anarchy,  the  confusion  of  tongues,  and 
the  worse  confusion  of  wearing  apparel  again.  My 
keys  were  of  not  much  service,  therefore,  to  the 


I   PASS   THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  101 

officer  in  charge  of  them ;  and  it  was  of  no  use 
addressing  myself  to  any  of  the  douaniers  or  porters, 
for  none  of  them  spoke  any  thing  but  Russ.  At 
length  I  caught  sight  of  a  certain  big  black  trunk 
of  mine  groaning  (to  use  a  little  freedom  of  illus- 
tration) under  a  pile  of  long  narrow  packing-cases 
(so  long  that  they  must  have  contained  young  trees, 
or  stuffed  giraffes,)  addressed  to  his  excellency  and 
highness,  &c.,  Prince  Gortchakoff ;  and,  being  plas- 
tered all  over  with  double  eagle  brands  and  seals, 
were,  I  suppose,  inviolable  to  custom-house  fingers. 
I  pointed  to  the  big  black  trunk ;  I  looked  steadily 
at  the  custodian  of  my  keys,  and  I  slipped  Peter- 
sen's  paper  rouble  (crumpled  up  very  small)  into  his 
hand.  The  pink  lid  of  his  little  gray  eye  trembled 
with  the  first  wink  I  had  seen  in  Russia ;  and,  in 
another  twinkling  of  that  eye,  my  trunk  was  dragged 
from  its  captivity,  and  ready  for  examination.  But 
there  is  a  vicious  key  to  that  trunk  which  refuses 
to  act  till  it  has  been  shaken,  punched,  violently 
wrenched,  and  abusively  spoken  to ;  and  while  the 
officer,  having  exhausted  the  first,  was  applying  the 
last  mode  of  persuasion  (in  Russ)  I  availed  myself 
of  the  opportunity  to  chink  some  of  the  serviceable 
Petersen's  copeck  pieces  in  my  closed  hand.  The 
key  having  listened  to  reason,  my  friend,  with  whom 
I  was  now  quite  on  conversational  terms,  made  a 
great  show  of  examining  my  trunk  :  that  is  to  say, 
he  dived  into  it  (so  to  speak)  head  foremost,  and 
came  up  to  the  surface  with  a  false  collar  in  his 
teeth ;  but  it  was  all  cry  and  no  wool,  and  I  might 
have  had  a  complete  democratic  and  socialist  library 


102  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

and  half  a  million  in  spurious  paper  money  for 
aught  he  knew  or  cared.  Then  I  gave  him  some 
more  copecks,  and  said  something  to  him  in  English, 
which  I  think  he  didn't  understand ;  to  which  he  re- 
sponded with  something  in  Buss,  which  I  am  per- 
fectly certain  I  didn't  understand  ;  and  then  he 
chalked  my  box,  and  let  me  go  free — to  be  taken 
into  custody,  however,  immediately  afterwards.  He 
even  recovered  my  courier's  bag  for  me,  which  an 
irate  douanier  had  converted  into  a  weapon  of  of- 
fence, swinging  it  by  a  strap  in  the  manner  of  the 
Protestant  Flail  to  keep  off  over-impatient  travellers. 
Such  an  olla  podrida  as  there  was  inside  that  couri- 
er's bag,  when  I  came  to  examine  it  next  morning  ! 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  I  had  no  Russian  paper 
money  with  me,  either  in  my  luggage  or  on  my  per- 
son ;  and  I  must  admit,  to  the  honour  of  the  Rus- 
sian custom-house,  that  we  were  exempted  from  the 
irritating  and  degrading  ceremony  of  a  personal 
search.  That  system  is,  I  believe,  by  this  time,  gen- 
erally exploded  on  the  continent — nourishing  only  in 
a  rank  and  weedy  manner  in  the  half-contemptible, 
half-loathsome  Dogane  of  Austrian  Italy,  and  (now 
and  then,  when  the  officials  are  out  of  temper)  at 
the  highly  important  seaport  of  Dieppe  in  France. 
As  for  books,  I  had  brought  with  me  only  a  New 
Testament,  a  Shakspeare,  and  a  Johnson's  Diction- 
ary. The  first  volume  incurs  no  danger  of  confisca- 
tion in  Russia.  The  Russians,  to  every  creed  and 
sect  save  Roman  Catholicism  and  that  branch  of 
Judaism  to  which  I  have  previously  alluded,  are  as 
contemptuously  tolerant  as  Mahometans.  Russian 


I   PASS  THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  103 

translations  of  the  Protestant  version  of  the  Bible 
are  common  ;  the  volumes  of  the  British  and  For- 
eign Bible  Society  are  plentiful  in  St.  Petersburg, 
and  Russians  of  the  better  class  are  by  no  means 
reluctant  to  attend  the  worship  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  both  in  Moscow  and  Petersburg.  But  it  is 
for  the  Romish  communion  that  the  Russians  have 
the  bitterest  hatred,  and  for  which  all  the  energy  of 
their  persecution  is  reserved.  Tolerated  to  some 
extent  in  the  two  capitals — as,  where  there  are  so 
many  foreigners,  it  must  necessarily  be — it  is  uni- 
formly regarded  with  distrust  and  abhorrence  by  the 
Greek  Church ;  and  I  do  believe  that,  in  a  stress  of 
churches,  an  orthodox  Russian  would  infinitely  pre- 
fer performing  his  devotions  before  a  pot-bellied 
fetish  from  Ashantee,  than  before  the  jewelled  shrine 
of  our  Lady  of  Loretto. 

I  think,  on  the  whole,  I  passed  through  the  custom- 
house ordeal  rather  easily  than  otherwise.  Far  dif- 
ferent was  it  with  Miss  Wapps,  who,  during  the 
process  of  search,  was  a  flesh  sculptured  monument 
of  Giantess  Despair,  dovetailed  with  the  three  Fu- 
ries blended  into  one.  This  uncomfortable  woman 
had  in  her  trunk — for  what  purpose  it  is  impossible 
to  surmise — the  working  model  of  a  power-loom,  or 
a  steam-plough,  or  a  threshing-machine,  or  some- 
thing else  equally  mechanical  and  inconvenient ; 
and  the  custom-house  officer,  who  evidently  didn't 
know  what  to  make  of  it,  had  caught  his  finger  in  a 
cogged  wheel,  had  broken  one  of  his  nails,  and  was 
storming  in  a  towering  rage  at  Miss  Wapps,  in 
Russ ;  while  she,  in  a  rage  quite  overpowering  his 


104  A    JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

in  volume,  was  objurgating  him  in  English,  till  a 
superior  official  charged  at  Miss  Wapps,  Cossack 
fashion,  with  a  long  pen,  and  conveyed  her,  clam- 
ouring, away. 

Sundry  red-bearded  men,  in  crimson  shirts  and 
long  white  aprons,  and  with  bare  muscular  arms, 
which  would  have  been  the  making  of  them  as 
artists'  models  in  England,  had  been  wrestling  with 
each  other  and  with  me,  both  mentally  and  physi- 
cally, for  the  honour  of  conveying  my  luggage  to  a 
droschky.  But  much  more  had  to  be  done  before  I 
could  be  allowed  to  depart.  All  the  passengers  had 
to  enter  an  appearance  before  a  fat  old  gentleman  in 
green,  and  bright  buttons,  who  sat  in  a  high  desk, 
like  a  pulpit,  while  a  lean,  long  man,  his  subordi- 
nate, sat  at  another  desk  below  him,  like  the  parson's 
clerk.  This  fat  old  gentleman,  who  spoke  English, 
French,  and  German  wheezily  but  fluently,  was 
good  enough  to  ask  me  a  few  questions  I  had  heard 
before:  as  my  age,  my  profession,  whether  I  had 
ever  been  in  Russia  before,  and  what  might  be  my 
object  in  coming  to  Russia  now  ?  He  entered  my 
answers  in  a  vast  leger,  and  then,  to  my  great  joy, 
delivered  to  me  my  beloved  Foreign-office  docu- 
ment, with  the  advice  to  get  myself  immatriculated 
without  delay.  Then  I  paid  more  copecks  to  a  dirty 
soldier  sitting  at  a  table,  who  made  "  Muscovite,  his 
mark,"  on  my  passport — for  I  do  not  believe  he  could 
write;  then  more  copecks  again  to  another  police- 
man, who  pasted  something  like  a  small  pitch-plaster 
on  my  trunk ;  and  then  I  struggled  into  a  court-yard, 
where  there  was  a  crowd  of  droschkies;  and,  secur- 


I   PASS   THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  105 

ing  with  immense  difficulty  two  of  these  vehicles — 
one  for  myself  and  one  for  my  luggage — was  driven 
to  the  hotel  where  I  had  concluded  to  stop. 

You  have  seen,  in  one  of  the  panoramas  that  in- 
fest our  lecture-halls,  after  painted  miles  of  river,  or 
desert,  or  mountain  have  been  unrolled,  to  the  tink- 
ling of  Madame  Somebody  on  the  piano,  the  canvas 
suddenly  display  the  presentiment  of  a  cheerful  vil- 
lage, or  a  caravan  of  pilgrims,  or  an  encampment  of 
travellers,  smoking  and  drinking  under  the  green 
trees  ;  then  the  animated  picture  is  rolled  away  into 
limbo  again,  and  the  miles  of  mountain,  or  river,  or 
desert,  begin  again. 

So  passed  away  the  unsubstantial  alliance  of  us 
thirty  living  travellers.  We  had  walked,  and  talked, 
and  eaten,  and  drunk  together,  and  liked  and  disliked 
each  other  for  three  days  and  nights  ;  and  now  we 
parted  in  the  droschky-crowded  yard,  never  to  meet 
again.  To  revisit  the  same  cities,  perhaps  inhabit 
the  same  streets,  the  same  houses,  to  walk  on  the 
same  side  of  the  pavement,  even  to  remember  each 
other  often,  but  to  meet  again  no  more.  So  will  it 
be,  perchance,  with  Greater  things  in  the  beginning 
of  the  End ;  and  life-long  alliances  and  friendships 
which  we  vainly  call  lasting,  be  reckoned  merely  as 
casual  travelling  companionships — made  and  broken 
in  a  moment  in  the  long  voyage  that  will  last  eternal 
years. 

I  am  incorrigible.  If  you  want  a  man  to  explore 
the  interior  of  Australia,  or  to  discover  the  North- 
west Passage,  or  the  sources  of  the  Niger,  don't  send 

5* 


106  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTII. 

me.  I  should  come  back  with  a  sketch  of  Victoria 
Street,  Sydney,  or  the  journal  of  a  residence  in  Cape 
Coast  Castle,  or  notes  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 
skipper  of  a  Hull  whaler.  If  ever  I  write  a  biog- 
raphy it  will  be  the  life  of  John  Smith;  and  the 
great  historical  work  which  is  to  gild,  I  hope,  the 
evening  of  my  days,  will  be  a  Defence  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  from  the  scandal  unwarrantably  cast  upon 
her,  or  an  Account  of  the  death  of  Queen  Anne. 
Lo  !  I  have  spent  a  summer  in  Russia  ;  and  I  have 
nothing  to  tell  you  of  the  Altai  mountains,  the 
Kirghese  tribes,  Chinese  Tartary,  the  Steppes,  Kam- 
schatka,  or  even  the  Czar's  coronation.  [I  fled  the 
country  a  fortnight  before  it  took  place.]  I  have 
learnt  but  two  Russian  cities,  [it  is  true  I  know  my 
lesson  by  heart,]  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow ;  and 
my  first-fruit  of  Petersburg  is  that  withered  apple 
the  Nevskoi-Perspective.  You  know  all  about  it 
already,  of  course.  I  can't  help  it. 

In  Brussels  my  first  visit  is  always  to  the  Manne- 
ken.  On  arriving  in  Paris  I  always  hasten,  as  fast 
as  my  legs  can  carry  me,  to  the  Palais  Royal ;  I 
think  I  have  left  a  duty  unaccomplished  in  London 
when  I  come  to  it  after  a  long  absence,  if  I  delay  an 
hour  in  walking  down  the  central  avenue  of  Covent 
Garden  Market.  These  are  cari  luoghi  to  me,  and 
to  them  I  must  go.  I  have  not  been  twenty  min- 
utes established  in  Petersburg,  before  I  feel  that  I 
am  due  on  the  Nevskoi ;  that  the  houses  are  waiting 
for  me  there ;  that  the  Nevskoians  are  walking  up 
and  down,  impatient  for  me  to  come  and  contem- 
plate them.  I  make  a  mental  apology  for  keeping 


I   TAKE   MY   FIRST   RUSSIAN   WALK.  107 

the  Nevskoi  waiting,  in  order  to  indulge  in  a  warm 
bath ;  after  which  I  feel  as  if  I  had  divested  myself 
of  about  one  of  the  twelve  layers  of  dust  that  seem 
to  have  been  accumulating  on  my  epidermis  since  I 
left  London.  Then  I  reflect  myself  inwardly  with 
my  first  Russian  dinner ;  and,  then,  magnanimously 
disdaining  the  aid  of  a  valet  de  place,  or  even  of  a 
droschky-driver ;  quite  ignorant  of  Russ,  and  not 
knowing  my  right  hand  from  my  left  in  the  way  of 
Russian  streets,  I  set  boldly  forth  to  find  out  the 
Nevskoi. 

It  is  about  seven  in  the  evening.  I  walk,  say 
three  quarters  of  a  mile,  down  the  big  street  in  which 
my  hotel  is  situated.  Then  I  find  myself  in  a  huge 
triangular  place,  of  which  the  quays  of  the  Neva 
form  one  side,  with  an  obelisk  in  the  midst.  I  touch 
my  hat  to  a  bearded  man  in  big  boots,  and  say 
"  Nevskoi  ?  "  inquiringly.  He  takes  off  his  hat, 
smiles,  shows  his  teeth,  makes  a  low  bow,  and 
speaks  about  a  page  of  small  pica  in  rapid  Russ.  I 
shake  my  head,  say  No  bono,  Johnny,  (the  only  im- 
becile answer  I  can  call  up  after  the  torrent  of  the 
unknown  tongue,)  and  point  to  the  right  and  to  the 
left  alternately,  and  with  inquiring  eyebrows.  The 
bearded  man  points  to  the  right — far  away  to  the 
right,  which  I  conjecture  must  be  the  other  side  of 
the  river.  "  Na  Prava,"  I  think  he  says.  I  discover 
afterwards,  that  Na  Pravo  (the  o  pronounced  as  a 
French  a]  does  mean  to  the  right.  To  the  right 
about  I  go,  confidently. 

I  cross  a  handsome  bridge  of  stone  and  wrought 
iron,  on  which  stands  a  chapel,  before  whose  shrine 


108  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

crowds  of  people  of  all  classes  are  standing  or  kneel- 
ing, praying,  and  crossing  themselves  devoutly. 
When  I  am  on  the  other  side  of  the  bridge,  and 
standing  in  a  locality  I  have  already  been  introduced 
to — the  English  quay — I  accost  another  man,  also 
in  beard  and  boots,  and  repeat  my  monosyllabic 
inquiry  :  Nevskoi.  It  ends,  after  a  great  deal  more 
of  the  unknown  tongue,  by  his  pointing  to  the  left. 
And  to  the  left  again  I  go,  as  bold  as  brass. 

I  pursue  the  line  of  the  quay  for  perhaps  half  a 
mile,  then,  bearing  to  the  left,  I  find  myself  in  an- 
other place  so  vast,  that  I  begin  to  pitch  and  roll 
morally  like  a  crazy  bark  on  this  huge  stone  ocean. 
It  is  vast,  solitary,  with  a  frowning  palace-bound 
coast,  and  the  Nevskoi  harbour  of  refuge  nowhere 
to  be  seen.  But  a  sail  in  sight  appears  in  the  shape 
of  a  soldier.  A  sulky  sail  he  is,  however ;  and, 
refusing  to  listen  to  rrfy  signal  gun  of  distress,  holds 
on  his  course  without  laying-to.  I  am  fain,  for 
fear  of  lying-to  myself  all  the  day  in  this  granite 
Bay  of  Biscay,  to  grapple  with  a  frail  skiff  in  the 
person  of  a  yellow-faced  little  girl,  in  printed  cot- 
ton. Another  monosyllabic  inquiry,  more  unknown 
tongue  (very  shrill  and  lisping  this  time,)  and  ulti- 
mately a  little  yellow  digit  pointed  to  the  northeast. 
Then  I  cross  from  where  stands  a  colossal  eques- 
trian statue,  spurring  fiercely  to  the  verge  of  an  arti- 
ficial rock  and  trampling  a  trailing  serpent  beneath 
his  charger's  feet,  and  on  whose  rocky  pedestal  there 
is  the  inscription  "  Petro  Primo  Catharina  Secunda." 
I  cross  from  the  statue  of  Peter  the  Great  some 
weary  hundreds  of  yards  over  stone  billows,  (so 


I  TAKE  MY  FIRST  RUSSIAN   WALK.  109 

wavy  is  the  pavement,)  to  the  northeast  corner  of 
that  which  I  afterwards  know  to  be  the  Admiral- 
tecskaia  Plochtchad,  or  great  square  of  the  Admi- 
ralty;  but  here,  alas !  there  is  a 'palace  whose  walls 
seem  to  have  no  cessation  for  another  half  mile, 
northeast.  And  there  are  no  more  sails  in  sight, 
save  crawling  droschkies,  and  I  begin  to  have  a  sen- 
sation that  my  compass  must  be  near  the  magnetic 
islands,  when  I  unpreparedly  turn  a  sharp  angle, 
and  find  myself  among  a  throng  of  people,  and  in 
the  Nevskoi  Prospekt. 

It  begins  badly.  It  is  not  a  wide  street.  It  does 
not  seem  to  be  a  long  street.  The  shops  don't  look 
handsome ;  the  pavement  is  execrable,  and  though 
people  are  plenty,  there  is  no  crowd.  It  is  like  a 
London  street  on  a  Sunday  turned  into  a  Parisian 
street  just  after  an  emeute.  It  ought  to  be  lively  at 
half-past  seven  in  the  evening  In  the  month  of  May, 
in  the  very  centre  of  an  imperial  city  of  six  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants.  But  it  isn't  lively.  It  is  quite 
the  contrary  :  it  is  deadly. 

This  is  the  place,  then,  I  have  been  fretting  and 
fuming  to  see  :  this  is  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  of 
St.  Petersburg.  This  the  Nevskoi.  As  for  the  per- 
spective, there  is  no  perspective  at  all  that  I  can  see. 
It  is  more  like  Pimlico.  There  is  a  street  in  that 
royalty-shadowed  suburb  called  Churton  Street,  in 
which  the  Cubit-Corinthian  mansions  at  its  head 
melt  gradually  into  the  squalid  hovels  of  Rochester 
Row,  Westminster,  at  its  tail.  The  houses  on  the 
Nevskoi  are  big,  but  I  expect  them  to  make  a  bad 
end  of  it.  Here  is  a  palace ;  but  not  far  off,  I 


110  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

gloomily  prophecy,  must  be  Westminster,  and  the 
rat-catcher's  daughter.  And  have  I  come  all  the 
way,  not  exactly  from  Westminster,  but  certainly 
from  t'other  side  .of  the  water,  to  see  this  ?  By  this 
time  I  have  walked  about  twenty-five  yards. 

I  have  not  walked  thirty-five  yards,  before  my 
rashly-formed  Nevskoi  opinions  begin  to  change.  I 
have  not  walked  fifty  yards,  before  I  discover  that 
the  Nevskoi  is  immensely  wide  and  stupendously 
long,  and  magnificently  paved.  I  have  not  walked 
a  hundred  yards,  before  I  make  up  my  mind  that 
the  Nevskoi-Perspective  is  the  handsomest  and  the 
most  remarkable  street  in  the  world. 

There  are  forty  perspectives,  Mr.  Bull,  in  this 
huge-bowelled  city.  I  do  not  wish  you  to  dislocate 
your  jaw  in  endeavouring  to  pronounce  the  forty 
Muscovite  names  of  these  perspectives ;  so,  con- 
tenting myself  with  'delicately  hinting  that  there 
is  the  Vossnessensk  Prospekt,  likewise  those  of 
Oboukhoff,  Peterhoff,  Isma'iloff,  and  Semenovskoi, 
I  will  leave  you  to  imagine  the  rest,  or  familiarize 
yourself  with  them  gradually,  as  they  perspectively 
turn  up  in  these  my  travels.  But  you  are  to  remem- 
ber, if  you  please,  that  the  Nevskoi  extends  in  one 
straight  line  from  the  great  square  of  the  Admiralty 
to  the  convent  of  Saint  Alecksander-Nevskoi',  a  dis- 
tance of  two  thousand  sagenes,  or  four  versts,  or 
one  French  league,  or  three  English  miles !  And 
you  will  please  to  think  of  that,  Mr.  Bull,  or  Master 
Brooke,  and  agree  with  me  that  the  Nevskoi  is 
something  like  a  street.  This  astonishing  thorough- 
fare, now  one  corridor  of  palaces  and  churches,  and 


I   TAKE  MY   FIRST   RUSSIAN   WALK.  Ill 

gorged  with  the  outward  and  visible  riches  of  no- 
bles, and  priests,  and  merchants,  was,  a  century  and 
a  half  ago,  but  a  bridle-path  through  a  dense  forest 
leading  from  a  river  to  a  morass.  The  road  was 
pierced  in  seventeen  hundred  and  thirteen,  and  a 
few  miserable  wooden  huts  thrown  together  on "  its 
borders  by  the  man  who,  under  Heaven,  seems  to 
have  made  every  mortal  thing  in  Russia — Peter  the 
Great.  Now,  you  find  on  the  Nevskoi  the  cathedral 
of  Our  Lady  of  Kasan,  the  Lutheran  church  of 
Saint  Peter  and  Saint  Paul,  the  great  Catholic 
church  of  the  Assumption,  the  Dutch  church,  the 
imperial  palace  of  Anitchkoff,  the  splendid  Alexk- 
sandra  theatre,  the  Place  Michel,  with  its  green 
English  square,  its  palace,  and  its  theatre ;  the 
Strogonoff  Palace,  the  Roumiantzoff  Palace,  the 
Galitzin  Palace,  the  Belozelski  Palace,  the  Bran- 
itzky  Palace,  the — the — for  goodness'  sake,  go  fetch 
a  guide-book,  and  see  how  many  hundred  palaces 
more!  On  the  Nevskoi  are  the  facades  of  the 
curious  semi-Asiatic  bazaar,  the  Gostinnoi'-Dvor, 
the  imperial  library,  (O  !  British  Museum  quadran- 
gles, glass  roof,  duplicate  copies,  five  thousand 
pounds'  worth  of  decoration,  museum  flea,  and  all, 
you  are  but  a  book-stall  to  it !)  the  Armenian 
church,  the  monuments  of  Souvorov,  (our  Suwar- 
row,  and  spelt  in  Russ  thus :  Cybopob,)  of  Barclay 
de  Tolly.  Oil  to  the  Nevskoi  debouch  the  aristo- 
cratic Morskaias,  which,  the  Balchoi  and  the  Mala, 
or  Great  and  Little,  are  at  once  the  Bond  Streets 
and  the  Belgravias  of  Petersburg.  On  to  the  Nev- 
skoi opens  the  Mala  Millione,  a  short  but  courtly 


112  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

street  terminated  by  a  triumphal  archway,  mon- 
strous and  magnificent,  surmounted  by  a  car  of 
Victory,  with  its  eight  horses  abreast  in  bronze,  and 
through  which  you  may  descry  the  red  granite  col- 
umn of  the  Czar  Alexksandra  Pavlovitch  (Na- 
poleon's Alexander)  and  the  immense  Winter  Pal- 
ace. On  to  the  Nevskoi  yawns  the  long  perspective 
of  the  Liteinai'a,  the  dashing  street  of  the  Cannous- 
china,  or  imperial  stables,  the  palace  and  garden- 
lined  avenue  of  the  Sadovvaia,  or  Great  Garden 
Street.  And  the  Nevskoi  is  intersected  by  three 
Venice-like  canals ;  by  the  canal  of  the  Moi'ka,  at 
the  PolizeVsky-Most,  or  Police  Bridge ;  by  the  Eka- 
terininskoi,  at  the  Kasansky-Most,  or  Kasan  Bridge; 
and  by  the  Fontanka  (Count  Orloff's  office — the 
office  where  ladies  have  been,  like  horses,  "  taken  in 
to  bait" — is  on  the  Fontanka)  at  the  Anitchkoff 
Bridge.  At  about  five  hundred  sagenes  from  this 
bridge  there  is  another  canal,  but  not  quite  so  hand- 
some a  one — the  Ligoff.  And  at  one  extremity  of 
this  Nevskoi  of  wonders  is  a  convent  as  big  as 
an  English  market-town,  and  with  three  churches 
within  its  walls,  while  the  other  end  finishes  with 
the  tapering  golden  spire  of  the  Admiralty,  (there 
are  two  Admiralties  in  this  town-residence  of  the 
Titans,)  which  Admiralty  has  a  church,  a  library, 
an  arsenal,  a  museum,  a  dockyard,  and  a  cadets' 
college  under  its  roof,  and  such  an  unaccountable 
host  of  rooms,  that  I  think  every  cabin-boy  in  the 
fleet  must  have  a  separate  apartment  there  when  he 
is  on  shore,  and  every  boatswain's  cat  have  a  pri- 


I  TAKE   MY   FIRST   RUSSIAN   WALK.  113 

vate  storeroom  for  each  and  every  one  of  its  nine 
tails. 

At  the  first  blush,  seven  in  the  evening  would  not 
seem  precisely  the  best  chosen  time  for  the  minute 
examination  of  a  street  one  had  never  seen  before. 
In  England  or  France,  at  this  early  spring-time,  it 
would  be  sunset,  almost  twilight,  blind  'man's  holi- 
day. And  there  is  not  a  gas-lamp  on  the  Nevskoi 
to  illumine  me  in  my  researches.  The  posts  are 
there :  massive,  profusely  ornamented  pillars  of 
wrought-iron  or  bronze ;  but  not  a  lamp  for  love  or 
money.  But  you  will  understand  the  place  when  I 
tell  you  that  it  will  be  broad  staring  daylight  on  the 
Nevskoi  till  half-past  eleven  of  the  clock  to-night ; 
that  after  that  time  there  will  be  a  soft,  still,  dreamy, 
mysterious  semi-twilight,  such  as  sometimes  veils 
the  eyes  of  a  woman  you  love,  when  you  are  sitting 
silent  by  her  side,  silent  and  happy,  thinking  of  her, 
while  she,  with  those  inscrutable  twilight  orbs,  is 
thinking  of — God  knows  what,  (perhaps  of  the 
somebody  else  by  whose  side  she  used  to  sit,  and 
whom  you  would  so  dearly  love  to  strangle,  if  it 
were  all  the  same  to  her ;)  and  then,  at  half-past 
one  in  the  morning,  comes  the  brazen  staring  morn- 
ing light  again.  For  from  this  May  middle  to  the 
end  of  July,  there  will  be  no  more  night  in  St. 
Petersburg. 

No  night !  why  can't  you  cover  up  the  sky  then  ? 
why  not  roof  in  the  Nevskoi — the  whole  bad  city — 
with  black  crape  ?  Why  not  force  masks  on  all 
your  slaves,  or  blind  them  ?  For,  as  true  as  heaven, 
there  are  things  done  here  that  God's  sun  should 


114  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

never  shine  upon.  Cover  up  that  palace.  Cover 
up  that  house  on  the  Fontanka.  Cover  up,  for 
shame's  sake,  that  police-yard,  that  Christians  may 
not  hear  the  women  scream.  Cover  them  up  thick 
and  threefold ;  for  of  a  surety,  if  the  light  comes 
in,  the  truth  will  out,  and  Palace  and  Fontanka, 
house  and  Gaol-yard  walls  will  come  tumbling 
about  your  ears,  insensate  and  accursed,  and  crush 
you. 

At  the  Admiralty  corner  of  the  Nevskoi,  I  make 
my  first  cordial  salutation  to  the  fine  arts  in  Russia. 
This  long  range  of  plate-glass  windows  appertains 
to  an  ingenious  Italian,  Signor  Daziaro,  whose 
handsome  print-shop,  with  the  elaborate  Russian 
inscription  on  the  frontage,  has  no  doubt  often 
pleased  and  puzzled  you  on  the  Boulevard  des 
Capucines  in  Paris ;  and  who  has  succursal  fine- 
arts'  establishments  in  Moscow,  in  Warsaw,  and  I 
believe  also  in  Odessa,  as  well  as  this  one  in  St. 
Petersburg.  Daziaro  is  the  Russian  Ackermann's. 
For  the  newest  portrait  of  the  Czar,  for  the  latest 
lithographs  of  the  imperial  family,  for  the  last 
engraving  after  Sir  Edwin  Landseer,  the  last  pay- 
sage  by  Ferogio,  the  last  caricature  (not  political, 
be  it  well  understood,  but  of  a  Lorette  or  debardeur 
tendency)  of  Gavarni  or  Gustave  de  Beaumont, 
you  must  go  to  Daziaro's.  His  windows,  too,  dis- 
play the  same  curious  thermometer  of  celebrity  as 
those  of  our  printsellers.  A  great  man  is  disgraced, 
and  sinks  into  oblivion.  One  day  he  dies,  and  then 
people  suddenly  remember  him,  (for  about  two 
days,)  as  he  was  before  he  wasn't.  Presto !  his  por- 


I  TAKE  MY  FIRST  RUSSIAN   WALK.  115 

trait  appears  in  Daziaro's  window.  Half-a-dozen 
copies  of  his  portrait  are  sold  during  his  two  days' 
resuscitation ;  and  then  he  is  relegated  to  the  port- 
folio again,  and  slumbers  till  his  son  wins  a  battle, 
or  runs  away  with  somebody  else's  wife,  or  is  made 
a  minister,  or  is  sent  to  Siberia,  or  does  something 
for  people  to  remember  and  talk  about  (for  about 
two  days  more,)  what  Monsieur  his  father  was. 
When,  failing  the  son's  portrait,  the  astute  Daziaro 
gives  the  respected  progenitor  another  airing  in  the 
print-shop  window ;  and  so  on  till  we  ripe  and  rot, 
all  of  us.  And  thereby  hangs  a  tale.  Is  this  only 
Russian  ?  Is  it  not  so  the  whole  world  over  ? 
There  was  a  thermometer  of  this  sort  in  a  print-shop 
at  the  corner  of  Great  and  Little  Queen  Streets, 
Lincoln's-Inn  Fields,  London,  which  I  used  to  pass 
every  morning ;  and  the  fresh  portraits  in  the  win- 
dow were  as  good  as  the  news  of  the  day  to  me. 
The  thermometer  in  Daziaro's  is  more  apparent, 
more  significant,  and  more  frequently  consulted ; 
for  this  is  a  country  where  the  news  of  the  day  is 
scarce ;  where,  in  an  intolerable  quantity  of  waste 
paper,  there  is  about  a  copeck's  worth  of  news  ;  and 
where  the  real  stirring  daily  intelligence  is  muttered 
in  dark  entries,  and  whispered  behind  hands  in 
boudoirs,  and  glozed  from  lip  to  ear  over  tumblers 
of  tea,  and  scribbled  on  blank  leaves  of  pocket- 
books  passed  hastily  from  hand  to  hand,  and  then 
the  blank  leaves  converted  instantly  into  pipe-lights. 
As  a  general  rule  you  can  find  out  much  easier 
what  is  most  talked  about  by  consulting  Signer 
Daziaro's  window,  in  preference  to  the  Journal  de 
St.  Petersbourg. 


116  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

Art,  Daziaro  passim,  is  in  no  want  of  patrons. 
The  shop  is  thronged  till  ten  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing (when  all  shops  on  the  Nevskoi  are  closed). 
The  stock  of  prints  seems  to  comprise  the  very 
rarest  and  most  expensive ;  and  you  may  be  sure 
that  a  liberal  percentage  has  been  added  to  the 
original  price  (however  heavy)  to  meet  the  peculiar 
views  of  the  Russian  public.  The  Russian  public — 
that  which  rides  in  carriages,  and  can  buy  beautiful 
prints,  and  has  a  soul  to  be  saved — the  only  Russian 
public  that  exists  of  course,  or  is  recognized  on  the 
Nevskoi ;  this  genteel  public  does  not  like,  and  will 
not  buy  cheap  things.  Cheap  things  are  low,  com- 
mon, vulgar,  not  fit  for  nous  autres.  Ivan  Ivano- 
vitch,  the  Moujik,  buys  cheap  things.  And  so  arti- 
cles must  not  only  be  dear,  but  exorbitantly  dear,  or 
Andrei  Andreivitch  the  merchant,  who  is  rich  but 
thrifty,  would  compete  with  nous  autres,  which 
would  never  do.  Andrei  will  give  a  hundred  roubles 
for  his  winter  fur.  This  would  be  shocking  to  the 
genteel  public ;  so  crafty  Frenchmen  and  Germans 
open  shops  on  the  Nevskoi,  where  a  thousand  sil- 
ver roubles  are  charged  and  given  for  a  fur  pelisse, 
not  much  superior  to  the  merchant's. 

There  are  dozens  of  these  "  Pelz-Magasins,"  or 
furriers'  shops,  on  the  splendid  Nevskoi,  and  even 
more  splendid  are  their  contents..  In  a  country 
which  even  in  the  hotest  summer  may  be  described 
as  the  Polar  Regions  with  the  chill  off — (imagine,  if 
you  like,  a  red-hot  poker  substituted  for  the  icy  pole 
itself) — and  which  for  five,  and  sometimes  six 
months  in  the  year  is  a  frigid  hell,  it  may  be  easily 


I  TAKE  MY  FIRST  RUSSIAN   WALK.  117 

conceived  that  furs,  with  us  only  the  ornaments  of 
the  luxurious,  are  necessities  of  life.  Ivan  the 
Moujik  does  not  wear  a  schooba  or  fur  pelisse,  but 
pauvre  diable  as  he  is,  scrapes  together  eight  or  ten 
silver  roubles  wherewith  to  buy  a  touloupe,  or  coat 
of  dressed  sheepskin,  whose  woolly  lining  keeps  him 
tolerably  warm.  But  the  humblest  employe  to 
Prince  Dolgorouki,  every  one  above  the  condition 
of  a  serf  must  have  a  schooba  of  some  sort  or  other 
for  winter.  Some  wear  catskins,  like  my  friend  the 
Jew,  who  wanted  me  to  buy  the  kibitka  at  Stettin. 
The  Gostinnoi  Dvor  merchants  wear  pelisses  of 
white  wolfskin  underneath  their  long  cloth  caftans. 
The  fur  of  the  squirrel,  the  Canada  marmot,  and  the 
silver  fox  of  Siberia,  are  in  great  request  for  the 
robes  of  burgesses'  xvives  and  employes''  ladies.  The 
common  soldiers  wear  sheepskins  under  their  gray 
capotes,  the  officers  have  cloaks  lined  with  the  fur 
of  the  bear  or  wolf.  But  Nous  Autres — the  Dvory- 
anin  or  Russian  noble — the  Seigneur,  with  his  hun- 
dreds of  serfs  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  roubles 
— for  him  and  for  Madame  la  Princesse,  his  spouse, 
are  reserved  the  sable  pelisse,  the  schooba  of  almost 
priceless  furs,  thick,  warm,  and  silky ;  a  garment 
that  is  almost  an  inheritance,  and  which  you  spend 
almost  an  inheritance  to  acquire.  One  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  sterling — I  have  observed  this — is  the 
price  of  a  first-class  schooba  on  the  Nevskoi.  There 
are  to  be  sure,  certain  murky  warehouses  in  the 
Gostinnoi  Dvor,  where  a  Russian  with  a  taste  for 
bargaining  and  beating  down  (and  that  taste  is 
innate  to  the  Muscovite)  may  purchase  a  sable 


118  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

pelisse  for  a  third  of  the  money  mentioned.  In 
Germany,  particularly  at  Leipsic,  furs  or  schoppen 
are  still  cheaper ;  and  one  pelisse  to  each  traveller 
passes  through  the  custom-house  duty  free ;  yet  the 
Russian  aristocracy  neglect  this  cheap  mart,  and 
hold  by  the  Nevsko'i  Pelz-Magasins.  We  all  re- 
member what  Hudibras  says  of  the  equality  of 
pleasure  between  cheating  and  being  cheated. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  furriers  are  the  jewel- 
lers. Now  I  comprehend  why  the  profession  of  a 
diamond-merchant  is  so  important  in  Leipsic  and 
Amsterdam,  and  where  the  chief  market  for  dia- 
monds is  to  be  found.  Every  jeweller's  window  has 
an  Alnaschar's  basket  of  almost  priceless  gems  dis- 
played in  it.  Rings,  bracelets,  necklaces,  carcans, 
vivieres,  ear-rings,  stomachers,  bouquets,  fan-mounts, 
brooches,  solitaires, — all  blazing  with  diamonds  so 
large  that  the  stock  of  Howell  and  James,  or  Hunt 
and  Roskell,  would  look  but  as  peddlers'  packs  of 
penny  trinkets  beside  them.  No  money  in  Russia ! 
Put  that  figment  out  of  your  head  as  soon  as  ever 
you  can :  there  is  enough  wealth  in  these  Nevskoi 
shop-windows  to  carry  on  a  big  war  for  half-a-dozen 
years  longer.  They  are  not  outwardly  splendid 
though,  these  jewellers.  No  plate-glass,  no  Corin- 
thian columns ;  no  gas-jets  with  brilliant  reflectors. 
There  is  an  oriental  dinginess  and  mystery  about 
the  exterior  of  the  shops.  The  houses  themselves  in 
which  the  shops  are  situated  have  a  private  look, 
like  the  banker's  or  the  doctor's  or  the  lawyer's  in  an 
English  country  town  magnified  a  thousand-fold ; 
and  the  radiant  stock  is  displayed  in  something  like 


I   TAKE  MY  FIRST  RUSSIAN   WALK.  119 

a  gigantic  parlour  window,  up  a  steep  flight  of  steps. 
There  is  a  miserable  Moujik,  in  a  crassy  sheepskin, 
staring  in  at  the  diamonds,  munching  a  cucumber 
meanwhile.  This  man-chattel  is  a  slave,  condemned 
to  hopeless  bondage,  robbed,  despised,  kicked,  beaten 
like  a  dog  ;  and  he  gazes  at  Prince  Legreeskoff's 
jewels  with  a  calmly  critical  air.  What  right  ? — but, 
be  quiet ;  if  I  come  to  right,  what  right  have  I  to 
come  to  Muscovy  grievance-hunting,  when  I  have 
left  a  thousand  grievances  at  home,  crying  to  heaven 
for  redress  ? 

The  tailors,  whose  name  is  that  of  ten  legions, 
and  who  are  very  nearly  all  French  and  Germans, 
have  no  shops.  They  have  magnificent  suites  of 
apartments  on  Nevskoi  first-floors  ;  and  their  charge 
for  making  a  frock-coat  is  about  eight  guineas  ster- 
ling, English.  You  understand  now  what  sort  of 
tailors  they  are.  They  are  too  proud,  too  high  and 
mighty,  to  content  themselves  with  the  simple  sar- 
torial appellation,  and  have  improved  even  upon 
our  home-snobbery  in  that  line  ;  calling  themselves 
not  only  Merchant  Tailors,  but  Kleider  meisters 
(Clothes  masters) ;  Undertakers  for  Military  Habili- 
ments (Entrepreneurs  d'habillemens  militaires) ;  Con- 
fectioners of  Seignorial  Costume,  and  the  like  high- 
sounding  titles.  You  are  to  remember  that  St. 
Petersburg  is  permanently  garrisoned  by  the  Impe- 
rial Guard,  which  is  something  like  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  thousand  strong  ;  that  the  epauletted 
mob  of  officers  (whose  pay  is  scarcely  sufficient  to 
defray  the  expenses  of  their  boot-varnish)  are,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  men  of  large  fortune,  and  that 


120  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  government  does  not  find  them  in  so  much  as  a 
button  towards  their  equipment.  And  as  the  uni- 
forms are  gorgeous  in  the  extreme,  and  very  easily 
spoilt,  the  Undertaker  of  Military  Habiliments  makes 
rather  a  good  thing  of  it  than  otherwise  in  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Tsar. 

Bootmakers  abound — Germans,  almost  to  a  man 
— whose  grim  shops  are  fortalices  of  places,  with 
stern  jack-boots  frowning  at  you  through  the  win- 
dows. And  shops  and  palaces,  palaces  and  shops, 
succeed  each  other  for  mile  after  mile,  till  I  am  fairly 
worn  out  with  magnificence,  and,  going  home  to 
bed,  determine  to  take  the  Nevskoi-mixture  as  be- 
fore, to-morrow. 


V. 

ISCHVOSTCHIK  !   THE   DROSCHKY-DRIVER. 

I  AJU  not  quite  certain,  I  must  premise,  as  to  the 
orthography  of  the  Russian  Cabby's  name.  It  is  a 
national  characteristic  of  the  Russians,  never  to  give 
a  direct  answer  to  a  question ;  and,  although  I  have 
asked  at  least  twenty  times,  of  learned  Russians 
how  to  spell  the  droschky-driver's  appellation  with 
correctness,  the  philologists  were  for  the  most  part 
evasively  dubious  and  readier  to  ask  me  questions 
about  the  head-dresses  of  the  British  Grenadiers, 


ISCHVOSTCHIK  !   THE   DROSCHKY-DEIVER.          121 

than  to  give  me  a  succinct  reply.  Perhaps,  they 
have  not  themselves  yet  made  up  their  minds  as  to 
the  proper  position  of  the  vowels  and  consonants  in 
the  word ;  for,  though  M.  Karamsin  is  generally  un- 
derstood to  have  settled  the  Russian  language  some  • 
years  since,  considerable  orthographical  license  yet 
prevails,  and  is,  to  some  extent,  tolerated.  A  sover- 
eign, less  conciliating  than  the  Czar  Alexander, 
would  very  soon  set  the  matter  right  by  an  oukase  ; 
and  woe  to  the  Russian  then,  who  didn't  mind  his 
P's  and  Q,'s !  As  it  is,  there  seem  to  be  as  many 
ways  of  pronouncing  the  cabby's  name,  as  the 
American  prairie.  I  have  heard  him  myself  called 
indifferently  Ischvostchik,  istvosschik,  issvostchik, 
and  isvoschchik.  When  you  hail  him  in  the  street, 
you  are  permitted  to  take  another  liberty  with  his 
title,  and  call  out  lustily  iss'vosch ! 

The  choice  of  a  subject  in  the  driver  of  a  public 
conveyance,  in  any  city,  familiar  as  he  must  be  to 
every  traveller,  is  not  very  defensible  on  the  score  of 
novelty ;  but — as  I  should  not  have  the  slightest 
hesitation  in  taking  a  Piccadilly  Hansom  cabman  as 
a  type  of  character,  and  drawing  him  as  best  I 
could  to  the  life,  if  I  had  a  salutary  purpose  to  serve 
— I  shall  make  no  more  bones  about  sketching  the 
ischvostchik,  than  if  he  were  a  new  butterfly,  or  an 
inedited  fern,  or  a  Niam-Niam,  or  any  other  rare 
specimen  entomological  or  zoological.  And  I  have 
a  plea,  if  needful,  wherewith  to  claim  benefit  of 
clergy;  this:  that  the  ischvostchik  is  thoroughly, 
entirely,  and  to  the  back  bone,  in  speech,  dress,  look, 
manners,  and  customs,  Russian. 
6 


122  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

I  was  repeatedly  told,  while  yet  new  to  the  Holy 
Land,  that  I  must  not  take  St.  Petersburg  as  by  any 
means  a  sample  of  a  genuine  Russian  city.  It  was 
a  French,  a  German,  an  English,  a  cosmopolitan 
town — what  you  will ;  but  for  real  Russian  customs 
and  costumes,  I  must  go  to  Moscow,  to  Novgorod, 
to  Kasan,  to  Smolensk,  to  Kharkoff,  or  to  Vladimir. 
Error.  I  do  not  think  that  in  the  whole  world  there 
exists  a  nation  so  thoroughly  homogeneous  as  Rus- 
sia. In  our  little  scrap  of  an  island,  there  are  two- 
score  dialects,  at  least,  spoken ;  and  a  real  north- 
countryman  can  scarcely  make  himself  understood 
to  a  southerner ;  but  here,  if  you  will  once  bear  in 
mind  the  two  divisions  of  race  into  Great  Russians, 
and  Little  Russians,  you  may  go  a  thousand  versts, 
without  finding  a  vowel's  difference  in  accentuation, 
or  a  hair's  breadth  alteration  in  a  caftan,  or  a  Ka- 
koshnik.  The  outlying  nationalities  subject  to  the 
Double  Eagle's  sway — the  Fins,  the  Laps,  the  Ger- 
man Russians,  (Esthonians,  Livonians,  &c.,)  the 
Poles,  the  Cossacks,  and  the  Tartars,  have  of  course 
their  different  languages  and  dresses ;  but  they  are 
not  Russians  :  the  Imperial  Government  recognizes 
their  separate  nationality  in  everything  save  taxing 
them,  making  soldiers  of  them,  and  beating  them ; 
but  the  vast  mass  of  millions — the  real  Russians — 
are  from  province  to  province,  from  government  to 
government,  all  alike.  At  the  end  of  a  week's  jour- 
ney, you  will  find  the  same  villages,  the  same  priests, 
the  same  policemen,  the  same  Moujiks  and  Ischvost- 
chiks,  in  appearance,  dress,  language,  and  habits,  as 
at  the  commencement  of  your  voyage.  You  who 


ISCHVOSTCHIK  !   THE  DROSCHKY-DRIVER.          123 

have  crossed  St.  George's  Channel  to  Dublin,  or  the 
Grampians  to  Edinburgh,  will  remember  the  striking 
contrast  between  the  cabman  you  left  in  London, 
and  the  Irish  car-driver  who  rattled  you  up  West- 
moreland Street,  or  the  canny  Jehu  who  conveyed 
you  in  a  cab  to  your  hotel  in  the  Scottish  metropo- 
lis. Take  but  a  jaunt  of  half  a  dozen  miles  by  rail 
out  of  London,  and  you  will  scarcely  fail  to  remark 
the  difference  between  Number  nine  hundred  and 
nine  from  the  Wellington  Street  stand,  and  the 
driver  of  the  fly  from  the  Queen's  Arms,  or  the  Ter- 
minus Hotel.  They  are  quite  different  types  of 
coachmanhood.  But  in  Russia,  the  Ischvostchik 
who  drives  you  from  the  Admiralty  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, to  the  Moscow  railway  station,  is,  to  a  hair  of 
his  beard,  to  a  plait  in  his  caftan,  to  a  sneezing 
penultimate  in  his  rapid  Russ,  the  very  counterpart, 
the  own  Corsican  brother,  of  the  Ischvostchik  who 
drives  you  from  the  terminus  to  the  Bridge  of  the 
Marshals  in  Holy  Moscow,  four  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  away.  Stay :  there  is  one  difference  in  cos- 
tume. The  Petersburg  Ischvostchik  wears  a  pecu- 
liar low-crowned  hat,  with  a  broad  brim  turned  up 
liberally  at  the  sides ;  whereas,  the  Moscow  cabby, 
more  particularly,  affects  a  Tom  and  Jerry  hat  with 
the  brim  pared  closely  off,  and  encircled  by  a  ribbon 
and  three  or  four  buckles — a  hat  that  has  some  re- 
mote resemblance  to  a  genuine  Connaught  bogtrot- 
ter's  head  covering.  Du  reste,  both  styles  of  hat  are 
common,  and  indifferently  worn  by  the  Moujiks  all 
over  Russia,  only  the  low-crowned  hat  being  covered 
with  a  silk  nap,  and  in  some  cases  with  beaver,  is 


124  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  more  expensive,  and  is,  therefore,  in  more  gen- 
eral use  in  Petersburg  the  luxurious.  Don't  believe 
those,  therefore,  who  endeavour  to  persuade  you  of 
the  non-Russianism  of  St.  Petersburg.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  eau-de-Cologne  consumed  there;  the 
commerce  in  white  kid  gloves  is  enormous ;  and 
there  is  a  thriving  trade  in  wax  candles,  pineapple 
ices,  patent  leather  boots,  Clicquot's  champagne, 
crinoline  petticoats,  artificial  flowers,  and  other  ad- 
juncts to  civilization.  Grisi  and  Lablache  sing  at 
the  Grand  Opera;  Mademoiselle  Cerito  dances 
there ;  French  is  habitually  spoken  in  society ;  and 
invitations  to  balls  and  dinners  are  sent  to  you  on 
enamelled  cards,  and  in  pink  billets  smelling  of  musk 
and  millefleurs ;  but  your  distinguished  Qrigin  may 
come  away  from  the  Affghan  ambassador's  balls,  or 
the  Grand  Opera,  or  the  Princess  LiagouschkofF's 
tableaux  vivans,  your  head  full  of  Casta  Diva,  the 
Valse  a  deux  temps,  and  the  delightful  forward- 
ness of  Russian  civilization ;  and  your  Origin  will 
hail  an  Ischvostchik  to  convey  you  to  your  domicil ; 
and  right  before  you,  almost  touching  you,  astride 
on  the  splashboard,  will  sit  a  genuine  rightdown 
child  of  Holy  Russia,  who  is  (it  is  no  use  mincing 
the  matter)  an  ignorant,  beastly,  drunken,  idolatrous 
savage,  who  is  able  to  drive  a  horse,  and  to  rob,  and 
no  more.  Woe  to  those  who  wear  the  white  kid 
gloves,  and  serenely  allow  the  savage  to  go  on  in  his 
dirt,  in  his  drunkenness,  in  his  most  pitiable  joss- 
worship  (it  is  not  religion),  in  his  swinish  ignorance, 
not  only  (it  were  vain  to  dwell  upon  that)  of  letters, 
but  of  things  that  the  very  dumb  dogs  and  necessary 


ISCHVOSTCIIIK  !   THE   DROSCIITvY-DRIVER.  125 

cats  in  Christian  households  seem  to  know  instinc- 
tively !  Woe  to  the  drinkers  of  champagne  when 
the  day  shall  come  for  these  wretched  creatures  to 
grow  raving  mad  instead  of  sillily  maudlin  on  the 
vitriol  brandy,  whose  monopoly  brings. in  a  yearly 
revenue  of  fifty  millions  of  roubles  (eight  millions 
sterling)  to  the  paternal  government,  and  when  the 
paternal  stick  shall  avail  no  more  as  a  panacea.  I 
know  nothing  more  striking  in  my  Russian  experi- 
ence, than  the  sudden  plunge  from  a  hothouse  of 
refinement  to  a  cold  bath  of  sheer  barbarism.  It  is 
as  if  you  left  a  presidential  levde  in  the  White 
House  at  Washington,  and  fell  suddenly  into  an 
ambuscade  of  Red  Indians.  Your  civilization,  your 
evening  dress,  your  carefully  selected  stock  of  pure 
Parisian  French,  avail  you  nothing  with  the  Isch- 
vostchik.  He  speaks  nothing  but  Russ;  he  cannot 
read ;  he  has  nothing,  nothing  in  common  with  you 
— closely  shaven  (as  regards  the  cheeks  and  chin) 
and  swathed  in  the  tight  sables  of  European  eti- 
quette, as  you  are — he  in  his  flowing  oriental  caftan, 
and  oriental  beard,  and  more  than  oriental  dirt. 

It  is  possible,  nay  a  thing  of  very  common  occur- 
rence, for  a  foreigner  to  live  half  a  dozen  years  in 
Russia,  without  mastering  the  Russian  alphabet,  or 
being  called  upon  to  say,  "  How  do  you  do  ? "  or 
"  Good-night ! "  in  Russ.  Many  of  the  highest 
Russian  nobles  are  said  indeed  to  speak  their  own 
language  with  anything  but  fluency  and  correctness. 
But,  unless  you  want  to  go  afoot  in  the  streets, 
(which  in  any  Russian  town  is  about  equivalent  to 
making  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  House  at  Loretto, 


126  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

with  unboiled  peas  in  your  shoes,)  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  you  to  acquire  what  I  may  call  the 
Ischvostchik  language,  in  order  to  let  your  conduc- 
tor know  your  intended  destination.  The  language 
is  neither  a  very  difficult,  nor  a  very  copious  one. 
For  all  locomotive  purposes  it  may  be  resumed  into 
the  following  ten  phrases. 

1.  Na  prava — To  the  right. 

2.  Na  leva— To  the  left. 

3.  Pouyiama — Straight  on.     Right  a-head.          • 

4.  Stoi— Stop! 

5.  Pashol-Scorrei — Quick,  go  a-head. 

6.  Shivai — Faster.  , 

7.  Dam  na  Vodka — I'll  stand  something  to  drink 
above  the  fare. 

8.  Durak— Fool. 

9.  Sabakoutchelovek — Son  of  a  dog ! 
10.  Tippian — You're  drunk. 

These  phrases  are  spelt  anyhow  ;  the  Ischvostchik 
language  being  a  Lingua  non  scripta^  and  one  that  I 
studied  orally,  and  not  grammatically ;  but  I  have 
written  them  to  be  pronounced  as  in  French  ;  and, 
if  any  of  my  readers,  intending  to  visit  Russia,  will 
take  the  trouble  to  commit  this  slender  vocabulary 
to  memory,  they  will  find  them  to  all  droschky- 
driving  intents  and  purposes  sufficient  for  their  ex- 
cursions in  any  Russian  town  from  Petersburg  to 
Kasan. 

There  are  some  facetious  Russians  who  supersede 
the  verbal  employment  of  the  first  four  of  these 
phrases  by  synonymous  manual  signs.  Thus,  being 
always  seated  outside,  and  immediately  behind  the 


ISCHVOSTCHIK  !   THE  DROSCHKY-DRIVER.          127 

driver,  they  substitute  for  "  to  the  right,"  a  sharp 
pull  of  the  Ischvostchik's  right  ear.  Instead  of  cry- 
ing "  to  the  left,"  they  pull  him  by  the  sinister  organ 
of  hearing ;  a  sound  "  bonneting"  blow  on  the  low- 
crowned  hat,  or  indeed,  a  blow  or  a  kick  anywhere 
is  considered  as  equivalent  to  a  gentle  reminder  to 
drive  faster ;  and,  if  you  wish  to  pull  up,  what  is 
easier  than  to  grasp  the  Ischvostchik  by  the  throat 
and  twine  your  hand  into  his  neckerchief,  pulling 
him  violently  backwards,  meanwhile,  till  he  chokes 
or  holds  hard  ?  It  is  not  often,  I  confess,  that  this 
humorous  system  of  speech  without  words  is  re- 
quired, or,  at  least,  practised  in  Petersburg  or  Mos- 
cow ;  but  in  the  country,  where  Nous  Autres  are  at 
home,  these,  and  numerous  other  waggish  modes  of 
persuasive  coercion,  are  in  use  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Ischvostchik.  I  remember  a  young  Russian  gentle- 
man describing  to  me  his  overland  kibitka  journey 
from  Moscow  to  Warsaw.  He  travelled  with  his 
mother  and  sister ;  it  was  in  the  depth  of  winter ; 
and  he  described  to  me,  in  freezing  accents,  the  hor- 
rors of  his  situation,  compelled  as  he  was  to  sit  out- 
side the  kibitka  by  the  side  of  the  Ischvostchik,  (or 
rather  yemschik ;  for,  when  the  droschky-driver  drives 
post-horses  he  becomes  a  postilion,  whether  he  be- 
stride his  cattle  or  the  splash-board.)  "  Outside,"  I 
said,  "  was  there  no  room  inside  the  carriage  ? " 
"  O,  yes !  plenty  of  room,"  was  the  naive  reply  of 
this  young  gentleman  ;  "  but  you  see  I  had  to  sit  on 
the  box,  because  we  had  no  servant  with  us,  and 
there  was  nobody  to  beat  the  postilion."  For  the 
Russian  driver  on  a  Russian  road,  receives  always 


128  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

as  much,  and  frequently  much  more,  stick  than  his 
cattle.  (Ischvostchiks  and  Yemschiks  are  proverbi- 
ally merciful  to  their  beasts.)  You  have  to  beat 
him  whether  you  fee  him  or  not.  Without  the  stick 
he  will  go  to  sleep,  and  will  not  incite  his  horses  into 
any  more  rapid  pace  than  that  which  is  understood 
by  a  snail's  gallop.  It  is  a  sad  thing  to  be  obliged 
to  record  ;  but  it  is  a  fact,  that  even  as  money  makes 
the  mare  to  go,  so  it  is  the  stick  that  makes  the  Rus- 
sian driver  to  drive  ;  and,  just  as  in  the  old  days  of 
Irish  posting  it  used  to  be  necessary  for  the  near 
leader  to  be  touched  up  on  the  flank  with  a  red-hot 
poker  before  he  would  start,  so  the  signal  for  depar- 
ture to  a  kibitka  driver  is  ordinarily  a  sounding 
thwack  across  the  shoulders. 

In  the  two  great  capitals,  happily,  words  will  serve 
as  well  as  blows  ;  and  to  the  "Petersburg  or  Moscow 
Ischvostchik  the  intimation  of  "  Dam  na  vodka,"  or 
even  "  vodka,"  simply,  will  seldom  fail  in  procuring 
an  augmentation  of  speed.  But  I  grieve  to  say  that 
the  epithets,  "fool!"  "you're  drunk!"  and  especially 
the  terrible  adjuration  "  sabakoutchelovek !  "  "  son  of 
a  dog ! "  are  absolutely  necessary  in  your  converse 
with  the  Ischvostchik,  particularly  when  the  subject 
of  fare  comes  to  be  discussed.  Every  Ischvostqhik 
will  cheat  his  own  countrymen,  and  I  need  not  say 
will  stick  it  on  to  foreigners  in  the  proportion  of 
about  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  per  cent.  He 
will  not  have  the  slightest  hesitation  in  asking  a 
rouble  for  a  fifteen  kopecks'  course;  and  it  is  all 
over  with  you  if  you  hesitate  for  a  moment,  or  en- 
deavour to  reason  out  the  matter  (by  nods,  smiles, 


ISCnVOSTCHTK  !   TUB   DROSCHKY-DRIVER.          129 

and  shrugs)  amicably.  Pay  him  the  proper  fare,  ac- 
companying the  payment  by  the  emphatic  "  durak ! " 
If  this  does  not  satisfy  the  Ischvostchik,  utter  the 
magical  sabakoutchelovek  in  the  most  awful  voice 
you  can  command,  and  walk  away.  If  he  presume 
to  follow  you,  still  demanding  more  money,  I  scarcely 
know  what  to  advise  you  to  do;  but  I  know,  and 
the  Ischvostchik  knows  also,  to  his  sorrow,  what 
Nous  Autres  do  under  such  circumstances.  One 
thing,  in  charity  and  mercy,  I  entreat  you  not  to  do. 
Don't  call  in  a  police-soldier  to  settle  the  dispute. 
As  sure  as  ever  you  have  that  functionary  for  an 
arbitrator,  so  sure  are  you  to  be  mulcted  of  some 
more  money,  and  so  sure  is  the  miserable  Ischvost- 
chik, whether  right  or  wrong,  whether  he  has  received 
under  or  over  fare,  so  sure  is  that  slave  of  a  slave 
either  to  have  his  nose  flattened  or  a  tooth  or  two 
knocked  down  his  throat  on  the  spot  by  the  fist  of 
the  boutosnik,  or  police-soldier,  or  to  be  made  to 
look  in  at  the  next  convenient  opportunity  at  the 
nearest  police-station,  or  siege,  and  there  to  be 
scourged  like  a  slave  as  he  is,  and  like  a  dog  as  he 
ought  not  to  be. 

The  way  these  wretched  men  are  beaten,  both 
openly  and  privately,  is  revolting  and  abominable. 
I  have  seen  a  gigantic  police-soldier  walk  coolly 
down  the  Nevskoi',  from  the  Pont  de  Police  to  the 
Kasan  church,  beating,  cuffing  across  the  face,  pull- 
ing by  the  hair,  and  kicking  every  single  one  of  the 
file  of  Ischvostchiks  who,  with  their  vehicles,  line 
the  kerb.  To  the  right  and  left,  sometimes  on  to 
the  pavement,  sometimes  into  the  kennel  and  under 


130  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

their  horses'  feet,  went  the  poor  bearded  brutes  un- 
der the  brawny  fists  of  this  ruffianly  Goliath  in  a 
gray  gaberdine.  I  saw  him  remount  the  Nevskoi 
to  his  standing-place,  exactly  repeating  his  pugilistic 
recreation — saw  it  from  a  balcony  overhanging  this 
same  NevskoV,  where  I  was  standing  with  ladies, 
and  with  officials  in  clanking  spurs.  We  had  a  lap- 
dog,  too,  in  the  balcony,  and  in  the  saloon  inside  an 
Italian  music-master  was  capering  with  his  nimble 
fingers  on  a  grand  piano ;  while  down  below,  the 
man  in  gray  was  felling  the  Ischvostchiks.  What 
their  offence  had  been — whether  standing  an  inch 
too  close  to,  or  an  inch  too  far  from  the  pavement,  I 
do  not  know  ;  but  I  know  that  they  were,  and  that 
I  saw  them,  thus  beaten  ;  and  I  know  that  they  took 
their  hats  off,  and  meekly  wiped  the  blood  from  their 
mouths  and  noses ;  and  gave  way  to  not  one  word 
or  gesture  of  resistance  or  remonstrance ;  but  I  know 
that,  in  the  wake  of  that  bad  ship  Graycoat,  there 
were  left  such  a  trail  of  white  vengeful  faces,  of  such 
gleaming  eyes,  of  such  compressed  lips,  that  were  I 
Graycoat  I  would  as  soon  pass  through  the  nether- 
most pit,  as  down  that  line  of  outraged  men,  alone, 
at  night,  and  without  my  police  helmet  and  my 
police  sword. 

It  is  not  pleasant,  either,  to  know  that  every  time 
your  unfortunate  driver  happens  to  lock  the  wheel 
of  a  private  carriage  he  is  due  at  the  police-station, 
there  to  consume  the  inevitable  ration  of  stick  ;  it  is 
horribly  unpleasant  to  sit,  as  I  have  often  done,  be- 
hind a  fine  stalwart  bearded  man — a  Hercules  of  a 
fellow — and,  when  you  see  the  tips  of  a  series  of 


ISCHVOSTCHIK  !   THE   DROSCJIKY-DRIVER.          131 

scarlet  and  purple  wheals  appearing  above  the  collar 
of  his  caftan  and  ending  at  the  nape  of  his  neck,  to 
be  convinced  after  much  elaborate  inductive  reason- 
ing, that  there  are  some  more  wheals  under  his 
caftan — that  his  back  and  a  police-corporal's  stick 
have  come  to  blows  lately,  and  that  the  stick  has 
had  the  best  of  it. 

A  droschky  is  a  necessary  of  life  in  Russia ;  it  is 
not  much  a  subject  for  astonishment,  therefore,  that 
there  should  be  above  three  thousand  public  drosch- 
kies  alone  in  Saint  Petersburg,  and  nearly  two  thou- 
sand in  Moscow.  Besides  these,  there  are  plenty  of 
hack-caleches  and  broughams,  and  swarms  of  small 
private  one-horse  droschkies.  Every  employe  of  a 
decent  grade  in  the  Tchinn,  every  major  of  police, 
has  his  "  one-horse  chay."  The  great  have  their  car- 
riages with  two,  four,  and  six  horses  ;  and  when  you 
consider  that  it  is  contrary  to  St.  Petersburgian 
etiquette  for  a  gentleman  to  drive  his  own  equipage  ; 
that  the  small  merchant  or  tradesman  even,  rich 
enough  to  possess  a  droschky  of  his  own,  seldom 
condescends  to  take  the  ribbons  himself  ;  and  lastly, 
that  if  not  by  positive  law,  at.  least  by  commonly 
recognized  and  strictly  observed  custom,  no  coach- 
man whatsoever,  save  those  who  act  as  whips  to 
foreign  ambassadors,  are  allowed  to  depart  from  the 
old  Russian  costume,  you  may  imagine  how  numer- 
ous the  wearers  of  the  low-crowned  hat  and  caftans 
are  in  St.  Petersburg. 

Here  is  the  portrait  of  the  Ischvostchik  in  his 
habit  as  he  lives.  He  is  a  brawny  square-built  fel- 
low, with  a  broad  bully-beef  face,  fair  curly  hair 


-  132  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

cropped  round  his  head  in  the  workhouse-basin  fash- 
ion, blue  eyes,  and  a  bushy  beard.  I  have  seen 
some  specimens  of  carroty  whiskers,  too,  among  the 
Ischvostchiks,  that  would  do  honour  to  the  bar  of 
England.  His  face  is  freckled  and  puckered  into 
queer  wrinkles,  partly  by  constant  exposure  to  wind 
and  weather,  torrid  heat  and  iron  frost ;  partly  from, 
the  immoderate  use  of  his  beloved  vapour-bath. 
The  proverb  tells  us  that  there  are  more  ways  of 
killing  a  dog  than  hanging  him — so  there  are  more 
ways  of  bathing  in  Russia  than  the  way  that  we 
occidental  people  usually  bathe — the  way  leaning 
towards  cleanliness,  which  is  next  to  godliness.  I 
cannot  divest  myself  (from  what  I  have  seen)  of  the 
impression  that  the  Russian  homme  du  peuple  is  con- 
siderably dirtier  after  taking  a  bath  than  previous  to 
that  ablution.  But  I  am  launching  into  so  vast  and 
interesting  a  topic  that  I  must  be  cautious,  and 
must  return  to  the  Ischvostchik. 

His  hands  and  feet  are  of  tremendous  size ;  he  is 
strong,  active,  agile  ;  and  his  capacity  for  endurance 
of  hardships  is  almost  incredible.  He  wears  invari- 
ably a  long  caftan  or  coat,  tight  in  the  waist  and 
loose  in  the  skirts,  of  dark  blue  or  grass  green  cloth 
or  serge,  not  by  any  means  of  coarse  materials,  and, 
if  he  be  a  well-to-do  Ischvostchik,  edged  with  two 
narrow  rows  of  black  velvet.  This  garment  is 
neither  single  breasted  nor  double  breasted — it  is 
rather  back  breasted,  the  right  lappel  extending  ob- 
liquely across  the  left  breast  to  beneath  the  armpit. 
Under  these  arms,  too,  and  again  if  his  Ichvostchik- 
ship  be  prosperous,  he  has  a  row  of  sugar-loaf  but- 


ISCHVOSTCHIK  !   THE   DROSCHKY-DRIVER.  133 

tons,  sometimes  silvery,  more  frequently  coppery, 
but  never  buttoning  anything,  and  serving  no 
earthly  purpose  that  I  am  aware  of.  This  caftan  is 
in  winter  replaced  by  the  touloupe,  or  sheepskin 
coat,  to  which  I  have  previously  alluded,  and  to 
which  I  give  warning  I  shall  have  to  call  attention, 
many  a  time  and  oft,  in  the  progress  qf  these  pa- 
pers. Under  "the  caftan  or  touloupe  exists,  perhaps, 
a  shirt,  (but  that  is  not  by  any  means  to  be  assumed 
as  an  invariable  fact,)  and  certainly,  suspended  by 
a  ribbon,  a  little  cross  in  brass,  or  a  medal  of  St. 
Nicolai,  St.  George,  St.  Serge,  St.  Alexander  Nevsky, 
or  some  other  equally  revered  and  thoroughly  Rus- 
sian saint.  "  Few  sorrows  had  she  of  her  own — my 
hope,  my  joy,  my  Genevieve,"  and  few  other  gar- 
ments of  his  own  (though  he  has  sorrows  enough) 
has  my  Ischvostchik.  A  pair  of  baggy  galligaskins, 
blue  or  pink  striped,  heavy  bucket  boots  well 
greased,  and  he  is  nearly  'complete.  Nay,  let  me 
not  omit  one  little  ornament  wherewith  he  sacrifices 
to  the  Graces.  This  is  his  sash  or  girdle,  which  is 
twisted  tightly  round  his  waist.  It  always  has  been, 
in  the  beginning,  dyed  in  the  brightest  and  most 
staring  hues ;  sometimes  it  has  been  of  gold  and 
silver  brocade,  and  silk  of  scarlet  and  of  blue ;  but 
it  is  most  frequently,  and  when  offered  to  the  view 
of  you,  the  fare,  encircling  the  loins  of  the  Isch- 
vostchik, a  rag — a  mere  discoloured  rag,  greasy, 
dirty,  frayed,  and  crumpled.  The  Ischvostchik  has 
a  brass  badge  with  the  number  of  his  vehicle,  and 
an  intolerable  quantity  of  Sclavonic  verbiage  in  re- 
lief;  and  this  badge  is  placed  on  his  back,  so  that 


134  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

you  may  study  it,  and  make  sure  of  your  Ischvost- 
chik,  if  you  have  a  spite  against  him. 

This  is  the  Ischvostchik  who,  with  his  beard  and 
blue  coat,  his  boots  and  breeches,  his  once  scarlet 
girdle,  his  brass  badge  in  the  wrong  place ;  his  di- 
.jninutive  hat  (decorated  sometimes  with  buckles, 
sometimes  with  artificial  roses,  sometimes  with 
medallions  of  saints) ;  his  dirt,  his  wretchedness, 
his  picturesqueness,  and  his  utter  brutishness  ;  looks 
like  the  distempered  recollection  of  a  bluecoat  boy, 
and  the  nightmare  of  a  beef-eater,  mingled  with  a 
delirium  tremens'  hallucination  of  the  Guildhall 
Gog  transformed  into  Japhet  in  the  Noah's  Ark. 


VI. 

THE   DROSCHKY. 


THE  Ischvostchik  is  not  necessarily  an  adult. 
Though  many  of  the  class  are  men  advanced  in 
years,  with  beards  quite  snowy  and  venerable  to 
look  at,  (terrible  old  rogues  are  these  to  cheat,)  there 
are,  on  the  other  hand,  numerous  droschky-drivers 
who  are  lads — nay,  mere  children.  It  is  desperately 
ludicrous  to  see  a  brat,  some  half-score  years  old,  in 
full  Ischvostchik  accoutrement;  for  they  will  not 
bate  an  inch  of  the  time-honoured  costume ;  and 
adhere  rigidly  to  the  long  caftan  and  the  gaudy  sash. 


TTTE   irnOSCHKY.  135 

As  large  men's  size  appears  to  be  the  only  pattern 
recognized  for  Ischvostchik  boots  and  hats  in  Rus- 
sia, the  diminutive  heads  and  spare  little  legs  of 
these  juvenile  drivers  are  lost  in  a  forest  of  felt  and 
an  abyss  of  boot-leather.  I  can  recall  now  more 
than  one  of  those  little  pale,  weazened,  frightened 
faces  bonneted  in  a  big  hat,  precisely  like  the  man 
who  is  taking  his  wife's  hand  in  that  strange  mirror 
picture  of  John  Van  Eyck's,  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery— the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  art  mechanism,  as 
it  seems  to  me  ;  for  if  Van  Eyck  were  the  inventor 
of  oil-painting,  he  has  surely  in  this  dawn-picture 
attained  the  highest  degree  of  perfection  in  the 
nicety  of  manipulation  to  which  that  vehicle  lends 
itself. 

A  plague  on  John  Van  Eyck,  that  he  should  make 
me  unmindful  of  my  Ischvostchik !  I  want  an  ex- 
cuse, too,  for  returning  to  him,  for  I  have  something 
to  say  about  the  vehicle  he  gains  his  livelihood  by 
driving — the  Droschky.  There  is  the  same  amount 
of  despairing  uncertainty  prevalent  concerning  the 
orthography  of  this  attelage — in  plain  English,  a 
one-horse  shay — as  about  its  conductor.  In  half- 
a-dozen  .  books  and  prints  I  find  Droschky  spelt  in 
as  many  different  ways:  it  appears  as  Droschka, 
Droski,  Drotchki,  Droskoi,  and  Drusschka ;  I  am 
perfectly  ignorant  as  to  the  proper  method  of  writ- 
ing the  word ;  but  I  have  elected  Droschky  as  the 
most  generally  accepted,  and  I  intend  to  abide  by 
it. 

The  real  Russian,  or  Moscow  droschky,  is  simply 
a  cloth-covered  bench  upon  clumsy  C  springs  on  four 


136  A  JOURNEY   DUB   NORTH. 

wheels,  with  a  little  perch  in  front,  which  the  driver 
bestrides".  You,  the  passenger,  may  seat  yourself 
astride,  or  sideways,  on  the  bench.  It  may  perhaps 
serve  to  give  a  more  definite  and  pictorial  idea  of 
the  droschky,  if  I  describe  it  as  a  combination  of 
elongated  side-saddle,  (such  as  are  provided  for 
the  rising  generation,  and  endured  by  long-suffering 
donkeys  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Spaniards  Tavern  at 
Hampstead,)  and  an  Irish  outside  car.  The  abomi- 
nable jolting,  dirt,  and  discomfort  of  the  whole  crazy 
vehicle,  forcibly  recall,  too,  that  Hibernian  institu- 
tion. There  is  a  leathern  paracrotte  on  either  side, 
to  prevent  the  mud  from  the  wheels  flying  up  into 
your  face,  and  the  bases  of  these  paracrottes  serve 
as  steps  to  mount,  and  a  slight  protection  in  the  way 
of  footing  against  your  tumbling  out  of  the  ram- 
shackle concern  into  the  mud  :  but  the  imbecility,  or 
malevolence  of  the  droschky-builder  has  added  a  tin, 
or  pewter  covering  for  this  meagre  flooring,  and  as 
your  bones  are  being  rattled  over  the  Russian  stones, 
"your  feet  keep  up  an  incessant  and  involuntary 
skating  shuffle  on  this  accursed  pewter  pavement. 
There  is  nothing  to  hold  on  by,  save  the  driver,  and 
a  sort  of  saddle-pummel  turned  the  wrong  way,  at 
the  hinder  end  of  the  bench ;  the  droschky  rocks 
from  side  to  side,  threatening  to  tip  over  altogether 
at  every  moment.  You  mutter,  you  pray,  you  per- 
spire ;  your  hooked  fingers  seek  little  inequalities  of 
the  bench  to  grasp  at,  as  Claude  Frolic's  tried  to 
claw  at  the  stone  copings  when  he  fell  from  the  tower 
of  Notre  Dame  ;  you  are  jolted,  you  are  bumped, 
you  are  scarified ;  you  are  dislocated ;  and,  all  this 


THE   DROSCIIKY.  137 

while,  your  feet  are  keeping  up  the  diabolical  goose- 
step  on  the  pewter  beneath.  Anathema,  Maranatha ! 
if  there  be  a  strong  north  wind  blowing,  (Boreas  has 
his  own  way,  even  in  the  height  of  summer,  in  Pe- 
tersburg,) and  your  hat  be  tempted  to  desert  your 
head,  and  go  out  on  the  loose !  There  is  such  a  hu- 
man, or  perhaps,  fiendish  perversity  in  hats,  when 
they  blow  off — such  a  mean,  malignant,  cruel,  and 
capricious  persistence  in  rolling  away,  and  baffling 
you — that  I  can  scarcely  refrain  from  shaking  my 
fist  at  my  vagrant  head-covering  while  I  am  running 
after  it,  and  swearing  at  it  when  I  capture  it ;  and 
punching  its  head  well  before  I  resettle  it  on  my 
own.  But  what  are  you  to  do  if  your  hat  flies  off 
in  a  droschky  ?  You  daren't  jump  out :  sudden 
death  lies  that  way.  The  driver  will  see  you  at  Ni- 
shi- Novgorod  before  he  will  descend  to  recover  it ; 
although  he  has  not  the  slightest  shame  in  asking 
you  to  get  down  to  pick  up  his  whip.  All  you  can 
do  is  to  shut  your  eyes,  tie  a  pocket-handkerchief 
over  your  head,  and  buy  a  new  hat ;  which,  by  the 
way,  will  cost  you.  for  a  very  ordinary  one,  ten  sil- 
ver roubles — a  guinea  and  a  half.  As  to  stopping 
the  droschky,  getting  down,  and  chasing  the  fugitive 
— that  might  be  done  in  England  ;  but  not  here.  It 
seems  almost  as  difficult  to  pull  up  a  droschky  as  a 
railway  train.  The  wheels  would  seem  to  be  greased 
to  such  a  terrific  extent,  that  they  run  or  jolt  on  of 
their  own  accord :  and  two  hundred  yards'  notice  is 
the  least  you  can,  in  any  conscience,  give  your  Isch- 
vostchik,  if  you  want  him  to  "  stoi."  Meantime, 
with  that  execrable  north  wind,  where  would  your 


138  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

hat  be  ?  In  the  Neva,  or  half-way  to  the  Lake  of 
Ladoga. 

When  the  Scythians  (was  it  the  Scythians,  by  the 
way  ?)  were  first  made  acquainted  with  horses,  we 
read  that  their  young  men  desirous  of  taking  lessons 
in  equitation  were,  to  prevent  accidents,  bound  to 
their  mettlesome  steeds  with  cords.  I  think  it  would 
be  expedient,  when  a  foreigner  takes  his  first  airing 
in  a  droschky,  to  tie  him  to  the  bench,  or  at  least  to 
nail  his  coat-tails  thereto.  The  born  Russians,  curi- 
ously, seem  to  prefer  these  perilous  vehicles  to  the 
more  comfortable  droschkies.  They  seldom  avail 
themselves  of  the  facility  of  bestriding  the  narrow 
bench,  Colossus  like,  but  sit  jauntily  sideways,  tap- 
ping that  deadly  pewter  with  their  boot-tips  as  con- 
fidently and  securely  as  the  Amazons  who  scour 
through  the  tan  at  the  Hippodrome  on  bare-backed 
steeds.  Ladies,  even,  frequently  patronize  these 
breakers  on  wheels.  It  is  a  sight  to  see  their  skirts 
spreading  their  white  bosoms  to  the  gale,  like  ships' 
canvas ;  a  prettier  sight  to  watch  their  dainty  feet 
pit-a-patting  on  that  pewter  of  peril  I  have  before 
denounced.  When  a  lady  and  gentleman  mount 
one  of  these  droschkies,  and  are,  I  presume,  on  tol- 
erably brotherly  and  sisterly  terms,  it  seems  to  be 
accepted  as  a  piece  of  cosy  etiquette  for  the  lady  to 
sit  in  the  gentleman's  lap. 

While  waiting  at  a  house-door  for  a  fare  engaged 
therein,  or  at  any  other  time  that  he  is  not  abso- 
lutely compelled  to  be  driving,  the  Ischvostchik  has 
a  habit  of  abandoning  the  splash-board,  and  reclin- 
ing at  full  length  on  his  back  on  the  droschky  bench, 


THE   DROSCIIKY.  139 

there  to  snore  peacefully,  oblivious  of  slavery,  un- 
mindful of  the  stick.  To  the  full  length  of  his  trunk 
would  be  perhaps  a  more  correct  expression,  for  the 
bench  is  only  long  enough  for  his  body  down  to  the 
knees ;  and  his  big-booted  legs  dangle  comfortably 
down  among  the  wheels.  He  will  sleep  here,  in  the 
sun,  in  the  rain,  in  weather  hot  and  cold ;  and,  were 
it  not  for  casual  passengers  and  the  ever-pursuing 
police  soldier,  he  would  so  sleep,  I  believe,  till 
Doomsday.  There  is  one  inconvenience  to  the  fu- 
ture occupant  of  the  droschky  in  this ;  that,  inas- 
much as  it  is  pleasant,  in  a  hotel,  to  have  your  bed 
warmed,  there  are  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the 
comfort  of  having  your  seat  warmed  vicariously; 
especially  when  the  animated  warming-pan  is  a 
Russian  and  an  Ischvostchik,  and,  and — well,  the 
truth  must  out — ragged,  dirty,  greasy,  and  swarming 
with  vermin. 

I  know  that  I  am  sinning  grievously  against  good 
manners  in  barely  hinting  at  the  existence  of  such 
things  ;  but  I  might  as  well  attempt  to  write  a  book 
on  Venice  without  mentioning  the  canals,  as  to 
chronicle  Russian  manners  and  customs  without 
touching  ever  so  delicately  on  the  topic  of  the  do- 
mestic animalculse  of  the  empire.  There  is  a  little 
animal  friendly  to  man,  and  signifying,  I  have  been 
given  to  understand,  love,  whose  existence  is  very 
properly  ignored  in  the  select  circles  of  refined  Eng- 
land, but  who  is  as  familiar  in  good  society  at  Pe- 
tersburg as  the  lively  flea  is  at  Pera.  It  was  my  for- 
tune, during  a  portion  of  my  stay  in  Russia,  to 
occupy  an  apartment  in  a  very  grand  house  on  the 


140  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

Nevskoi  Perspective,  nearly  opposite  the  cathedral 
of  Our  Lady  of  Kasan.  The  house  itself  had  an 
ecclesiastical  title,  being  the  Dom-Petripavloskoi,  or 
house  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  was  an  ap- 
panage of  that  wealthy  church.  We  had  a  marble 
staircase  to  our  house,  imitation  scagliola  columns, 
and  panels  painted  quite  beautifully  with  Cupids 
and  Venuses.  A  Russian  lady  of  high  rank  occu- 
pied a  suite  of  apartments  on  the  same  floor ;  and, 
late  one  night,  when  I  was  about  retiring  to  rest,  her 
well-born  excellency  (I  used  to  call  her  the  Queen  of 
Sheba,  she  was  so  stately)  condescended  to  order  her 
body-servant  to  tap  at  my  door,  and  tell  me  that  the 
Barynia  desired  to  speak  with  me.  I  accordingly  had 
an  interview  with  her  at  the  door  of  her  apartment, 
she  being  also  about  to  retire  for  the  night.  She 
had  something  to  show  me,  she  said.  Russian  ladies 
always  have  something  to  show  you — a  bracelet,  a 
caricature,  a  tame  lizard,  a  musical  box,  a  fly  in 
amber,  or  some  novelty  of  that  description — but  this 
was  simply  a  remarkably  handsome  black  velvet 
mantle,  with  two  falls  of  rich  black  lace  to  it.  I 
knew  that  it  was  new,  and  had  come  home  only 
that  afternoon  from  Madame  Zoe  Falcon's,  the 
court  modiste  in  the  Mala  Million ne ;  so,  expecting 
that  the  countess,  with  the  elegant  caprice  in  which 
her  distinguished  position  gave  her  a  right  to  in- 
dulge, wished  to  have,  even  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  the  opinion  of  an  Anglisky  upon  her  man- 
tle, I  said,  critically,  that  it  was  very  pretty  ;  where- 
upon, a  taper  finger  was  pointed  to  a  particular 
spot  on  the  mantle,  and  a  silvery  voice  said,  "  Re- 


THE    DROSCIIKY.  141 

gardez  ! "  I  did  regarder,  and,  on  my  honour,  I 
saw  strolling  leisurely  over  the  black  velvet,  gravely, 
but  confidently,  majestic  but  unaffected,  his  white 
top-coat  on,  his  hat  on  one  side,  his  umbrella  under 
his  arm,  (if  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  such  meta- 
phorical expressions,)  as  fine  a  LOUSE  as  ever  was 
seen  in  St.  Giles's.  I  bowed  and  withdrew. 

I  must  explain  that  I  had  previously  expressed 
myself  as  somewhat  skeptic  to  this  lady  respecting 
the  animalcular  phenomena  of  Russia ;  for  I  had 
been  stopping  in  a  German  hotel  at  Wassily-Os- 
trow,  where  the  bedrooms  were  scrupulously  clean ; 
and  it  must  be  also  said  that  the  lady  in  question, 
though  a  Russian  subject,  and  married  to  an  officer 
in  the  guards,  had  been  born  and  educated  in  west- 
ern Europe.  Had  she  been  a  native  Russian,  little 
account  would  she  have  taken  of  such  a  true-born 
subject  of  the  Czar  at  that  late  hour,  I  ween. 

Although  the  violent  and  eccentric  oscillations  of 
a  single-bodied  droschky  undoubtedly  conduce  to  a 
frame  of  mind  which  is  a  sovereign  cure  for  hypo- 
chondriasis,  yet  the  drawbacks  to  its  advantages 
(the  last  one  especially)  are  so  fearful,  that  I  ques- 
tion whether  it  be  worth  while  to  undergo  so  much 
suffering  as  the  transition  from  a  state  of  chronic 
melancholy  to  one  of  raving  madness.  In  the  prov- 
inces, I  am  sorry  to  write  it,  it  is  ofttimes  but  Hob- 
son's  choice — this  or  none ;  b.ut  in  St.  Petersburg 
(and  I  suppose  in  coronation  time  at  Moscow)  there 
is  no  lack  of  double-bodied  droschkies,  in  which  you 
may  ride  without  any  very  imminent  danger  of  a 
dislocation  of  the  arm,  and  a  compound  fracture  of 


142  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

the  thigh,  or  so,  per  verst.  The  form  of  the  double- 
bodied  droschky,  though  not  very  familiar  to  our 
Long  Acre  carriage  architects,  is  well  known  in 
France.  The  inhabitants  of*  the  Rue  du  Jeu  de 
Paume,  at  Versailles,  must  be  well  acquainted  with 
it ;  for  therein  it  was  whilom  (and  is  so  still,  I  hope) 
the  custom  of  the  great  French  painter,  Monsieur 
HORACE  VERNET,  to  ride  in  a  trim  coquettish  little 
droschky  presented  to  him  by  the  Czar  Nicholas. 
In  his  latter  days,  his  imperial  friend  did  not  like 
Horace  quite  so  much  ;  the  impudent  artist  having 
been  misguided  enough  io  publish  some  letters 
which  had  the  misfortune  to  be  true,  and  not  quite 
favourable  to  the  imperial  regime.  This  droschky 
was,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  a  gem  of  its  kind — a 
model  Attelage  Russe.  The  horse — likewise  a  pres- 
ent from  the  emperor — was  a  superb  coal-black 
e talon  of  the  Ukraine ;  and  to  complete  the  turn- 
out, the  driver  was  in  genuine  Ischvostchik  costume 
— in  hat,  boots,  and  caftan  complete.  I  want  to  see 
the  double-bodied  droschky  in  London,  Ischvostchik 
and  all.  I  am  tired  of  tandems,  dog-carts,  mail- 
phaetons,  and  hooded  cabriolets,  with  tall  horses  and 
short  tigers.  What  could  there  be  more  spicy  down 
the  road  than  a  droschky,  sparkling,  shining,  fault- 
less to  a  nut,  a  rivet,  as  our  matchless  English  coach- 
builders  only  know  how  to  turn  out  an  equipage ; 
with  a  fast  trotting  mare  in  the  shafts,  and  a  driver 
with  a  bushy  beard,  a  sky-blue  caftan,  shiny  boots, 
and  an  Ischvostchik's  hat  ?  I  think  John  Coachman 
would  not  object  to  growing  a  beard  and  wearing  a 
caftan  for  a  reasonable  advance  on  his  wages.  I 


THE  DKOSCHKY.  143 

wonder  if  any  of  the  stately  English  hidalgos  I  saw 
just  before  I  left  Russia — if  any  of  those  ethereally- 
born  Secretaries  of  Legation,  and  unpaid  attaches — 
will  bring  home  a  droschky  from  the  land  of  the 
Russ,  or,  on  their  return,  order  one  from  Laurie  or 
Houlditch.  There  are,  perhaps,  two  slight  obstacles 
to  the  naturalization  of  the  droschky  in  England. 
In  the  first  place,  you  couldn't  have  the  Ischvostchik 
thrashed  if  he  didn't  drive  well ;  in  the  next,  the 
English  gentleman  is  innately  a  driving  animal. 
He  likes  to  take  the  ribbons  himself,  while  his  groom 
sits  beside  with  folded  arms.  In  Russia,  the  case  is 
precisely  contrary.  The  Russian  moujik  is  almost 
born  a  coachman ;  at  all  events,  he  begins  to  drive 
in  his  tenderest  childhood.  The  Russian  gentleman 
scarcely  ever  touches  a  pair  of  reins.  The  work  is 
too  hard ;  besides,  is  there  not  Ivan  Ivanovitch  to 
take  the  trouble  off  our  hands  ?  In  St.  Petersburg, 
it  is  entirely  contrary  to  etiquette  for  a  gentleman 
to  be  seen  driving  his  own  equipage  ;  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  any  gentleman  so  sinning  would  draw 
upon  himself  a  reprimand  from  the  emperor,  or,  at 
least,  the  evil  eye  of  the  police.  This  extraordinary 
government  seems  almost  to  be  jealous  of  private 
equestrianism.  In  no  capital  in  Europe  do  you  see 
such  a  woful  paucity  of  cavaliers  as  in  St.  Peters- 
burg. I  do  not  speak  of  the  city  proper,  in  which 
the  execrable  pavement  is  sufficient  to  ruin  any 
horse's  feet;  but  in  the  environs,  where  there  are 
good  roads,  you  seldom  meet  any  persons  in  plain 
clothes  on  horseback.  Either  it  is  not  bon-ton  to 
ride  in  mufti  (and,  to  be  candid,  there  are  very  few 


144  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

gentlemen,  save  the  members  of  the  corps  diplo- 
matique, who  ever  appear  out  of  uniform,)  or  to 
have  a  horse  to  one's  self,  and  to  ride  it  is  considered 
in  certain  quarters  an  encroachment  on  the  imperial 
prerogative  of  a  cavalry  force ;  or — and  this  I  am 
led  shrewdly  to  suspect  is  the  real  reason — the  Rus- 
sians are  bad  horsemen,  and  don't  care  about  equi- 
tation when  not  upon  compulsion.  Be  good  enough 
to  bear  in  mind  that  the  Tartars  and  Cossacks,  who 
live  almost  entirely  on  horseback,  are  not  Russians. 
The  Russian  cavalry  soldiers  sit  their  horses  in  the 
clumsiest,  painfullest  manner  you  can  conceive  ;  and 
though  they  have  the  vastest  riding  schools,  and  the 
most  awfully  severe  manege  to  be  found  anywhere, 
the  Russian  cavalry  are  notoriously  inefficient  as 
troopers ;  they  are  grenadiers  on  horseback,  nothing 
more.  They  can  do  every  thing,  and  more  than 
western  soldiers,  in  the  way  of  manoeuvring,  curvet- 
ing, and  caracoling,  of  course — they  MUST  do  it,  or 
the  omnipotent  Stick  will  know  the  reason  why  ; 
but,  in  actual  warfare,  it  is  astonishing  how  our 
friend  the  Cossack  goes  up  to  premium,  and  how 
the  dragoon  goes  down  to  discount.  The  peasants 
of  Little  Russia  make  tolerably  good  troopers ;  which 
is  difficult  to  understand,  seeing  that  with  them 
horses  are  scarce,  and  their  principal  experience  in 
riding  and  driving  is  confined  to  oxen  ;  but  the  Rus- 
sian proper  is  almost  as  much  a  stranger  to  a  horse's 
back  as  a  man-o'-war's  man  is,  though  he,  the  Rus- 
sian, has  a  natural  genius  for  droschky -driving.  And 
this  I  write  after  having  seen  a  review  of  the  Cheva- 
lier Guards,  who,  if  size  and  magnificence  of  ap- 


THE   DROSCHKY.  145 

pointment  are  to  be  considered  as  a  test  of  capacity, 
are  the  twelve  hundred  finest  men  upon  the  twelve 
hundred  finest  horses  in  the  world. 

Now  and  then — but  it  is  a  case  of  extreme  rarity 
of  occurrence — you  see  a  Gentilhomme  Russe  driving 
(himself)  a  feeble  imitation  of  an  English  dog-cart, 
in  a  leafy  road  on  one  of  the  pretty  islands  in  the 
Neva.  Every  Russian,  of  whatever  rank  he  may  be 
— from  the  sun,  moon,  and  starred  general,  to  the 
filthy  moujik ;  from  the  white-headed  octogenarian 
to  the  sallow  baby  in  the  nurse's  arms — every  child 
of  the  Czar  has  a  worn,  pinched,  dolorous,  uneasy 
expression  in  his  countenance,  as  if  his  boots  hurt 
him,  or  as  if  he  had  a  cankerworm  somewhere,  or  a 
scarlet  letter  burnt  into  his  breast,  like  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Dimsdale.  They  are  not  good  to  look  at — Russian 
faces.  People  say  that  it  is  the  climate,  or  the  abuse 
of  vapour  baths,  that  gives  them  that  unlovely  look. 
But  a  bad  climate  won't  prevent  you  from  looking 
your  neighbor  in  the  face ;  two  vapour  baths  per 
week  won't  pull  down  the  corners  of  your  mouth, 
and  give  you  the  physiognomy  of  a  convict  who 
would  like  to  get  into  the  chaplain's  good  graces. 
No.  It  is  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Stick  through 
which  these  men  are  continually  passing,  that  casts 
this  evil  hang-dog  cloud  upon  them.  Well,  imagine 
the  Gentilhomme  Russe  in  his  dog-cart  with  four 
reins,  no  whip,  and  that  rueful  visage  I  have  spoken 
of.  By  his  side  is  a  slave-servant,  evidently  shaved 
against  his  will,  and  who  is  of  the  same  (hirsute) 
opinion  still ;  for  bristles  are  obstinately  starting  out 
of  forbidden  corners.  He  has  a  shabby  blue  cap 

7 


146  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

with  a  faded  gold  lace  band,  and  a  livery  that  does 
not  come  within  the  wildest  possibility  of  having 
been  made  for  him.  He  tries  mournfully  to  fold  his 
arms,  with  those  paws  covered  with  dirty  Berlin 
gloves,  and  he  makes  superhuman  efforts  not  to  fall 
asleep.  Master  and  man  are  clearly  in  a  wrong 
position.  The  horse  (a  first-rate  one,  with  a  flowing 
mane  and  tail)  evidently  despises  the  whole  concern, 
and  kicks  his  heels  up  at  it.  The  dog-cart  is  badly 
built,  the  wheels  are  out  of  balance,  and  the  paint  is 
dingy.  They  never  seem  to  wash  Russian  car- 
riages ;  I  have  lived  over  a  mews,  and  ought  to 
know.  This  Gentilhomme  Ruspe  in  the  dog-cart  is 
about  as  mournful  a  sight  as  is  to  be  seen  anywhere, 
even  in  Russia. 

But,  when  the  Russians  are  sensible  enough  to 
abandon  imitation,  and  to  stand  or  fall  by  their  own 
native  equipages,  they  can  make  a  brave  show.  -Of 
little,  private,  double-bodied  droschkies,  there  are 
swarms ;  and  in  some  of  these  you  will  see  horses 
worth  from  seven  to  twelve  hundred  silver  roubles 
each.  Many  a  puny  cornet  in  the  guards,  too,  has 
his  caleche  lined  with  moird-antique,  and  drawn  by 
two  splendid,  black,  Ukraine  horses.  I  may  observe 
that  the  horses  never  wear  blinkers,  and  that,  though 
full  of  mettle,  they  are  very  little  addicted  to  shying. 
The  harness  is  quite  peculiar  and  Russian,  consist- 
ing of  a  purple  net  of  leather-work  profusely  span- 
gled with  small  discs  of  silver.  Only  some  of  the 
court  carriages  are  drawn  by  horses  harnessed  in  the 
English  manner.  Pretty  as  their  own  caparisons  are 
the  Russians  sigh  for  foreign  fashions ;  and  extrava- 


THE   DROSCHKY.  147 

gant  prices  are  given  for  a  set  of  English  harness. 
In  the  native  harness  there  seem  to  be  a  good  many 
unnecessary  straps  and  tassels  ;  but  the  backs  of  the 
horses  are  left  almost  entirely  free,  which  has  a  very 
picturesque  and  wild  horse  of  the  prairie  sort  of 
effect.  Coal  black  is  the  favourite  hue  ;  next,  gray. 
With  all  horses,  the  sensible  custom  is  observed  of 
allowing  the  manes  and  tails  to  grow ;  and  the  con- 
sequence is,  that  the  animals  look  about  thrice  as 
handsome  and  as  noble  (bless  their  honest  hearts !) 
as  the  be-ratted,  be-grayhounded  steeds  we  see  at 
home. 

The  coachman  of  the  Princess  Schiliapoff,  (or  any 
other  princess  you  like  to  find  a  name  for,)  the  con- 
ductor of  those  coal-black  steeds,  (the  SchiliapofF  has 
twenty-five  hundred  serfs,  and  half  the  Ogurzi  Per- 
spective belongs  to  her,)  is  own  brother  to  the  rag- 
ged, dirty  Ischvostchik.  Nor,  though  he  is  coachman 
to  a  princess,  is  his  social  position  one  whit  better 
than  that  of  Ivan  Ivanovitch,  sprawling  on  his  back 
on  the  droschky  bench.  His  caftan  is  made  of  su- 
perfine broadcloth,  sometimes  of  velvet,  slashed  at 
the  back  and  sides  with  embroidery,  as  if  he  had 
been  knouted  with  a  golden  whip  ;  his  hat  is  of  the 
shiniest  nap,  has  a  velvet  band,  a  silver  buckle,  and 
is  decorated  with  a  bunch  of  rosy  ribbons,  a  bouquet 
of  artificial  flowers,  or  a  peacock's  feather.  He  has 
a  starched  white  neckcloth,  buckskin  gloves,  rings  in 
his  ears ;  his  hair  is  scrupulously  cut,  and  his  beard 
is  bushy,  well  trimmed,  oiled,  and  curled.  He  has  a 
sash  radiant  with  bright  colours,  and  the  top  of  a 
crimson  silk  shirt  just  asserts  itself  above  his  caftan. 


148  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

It  is  probable  that  he  sometimes  gets  meat  to  eat, 
and  that  he  has  decent  sleeping  accommodation  in 
the  stables,  along  with  the  horses.  But  he  is  a 
SLAVE,  body  and  bones.  The  Princess  Schiliapoff 
may  sell  him  to-morrow  if  she  have  a  mind.  [To  those 
who  have  an  idea  that  Russian  serfs  cannot  be  sold 
away  from  the  soil,  I  beg  to  recall  Mr.  Fox's  recom- 
mendation to  Napoleon  Bonaparte  on  the  assassina- 
tion question,  "  Put  all  that  nonsense  out  of  your 
head."]  The  princess  may  send  him  to  the  police, 
and  have  him  beaten  like  a  sack  if  he  take  a  wrong 
turning,  or  pull  up  at  the  wrong  milliner's  shop :  the 
princess's  majordomo  may,  and  does,  kick,  cuff,  and 
pull  his  hair,  whenever  he  has  a  mind  that  way. 
The  princess  may,  if  he  have  offended  her  beyond 
the  power  of  stick  to  atone  for,  send  him  as  an  exile 
to  Siberia,  or  into  the  ranks  of  the  army  as  a  soldier. 
There  are  many  noble  families  who  pride  themselves 
on  having  handsome  men  as  coachmen ;  there  are 
others,  like  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  wh.o  like  to  have 
old  men  to  drive  them.  I  have  seen  some  of  this 
latter  category,  quite  patriarchs  of  the  box,  venerable, 
snowy-bearded  old  men,  that  might  have  sat  for  por- 
traits of  the  Apostles  in  the  Cartoons.  It  is  pleasant, 
is  it  not,  to  be  six  feet  high  and  as  handsome  as  Du- 
nois,  and  to  be  sold  to  pay  a  gambling  debt  ?  To 
be  sixty  years  of  age,  and  have  a  white  head,  and 
grandchildren,  and  to  be  scourged  with  birch  rods 
like  a  schoolboy  ?  And  these  good  people  are 
WHITE,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  —  White, 
ma'am ! 

The  Russian  imperial  court  is  a  court ;  by  which, 


THE   DROSCHKY.  149 

on  the  principle  of  coals  being  coals,  I  mean  that 
the  Czar  has  always  in  his  train  a  vast  number  of 
grand  dignitaries  of  the  household,  and  bond  fide 
courtiers,  constantly  attendant  on  and  resident  with 
him.  These  courtly  personages,  when  they  drive 
about  in  carriages,  are  permitted  to  have  a  footman 
on  the  box  beside  the  coachman.  This  John  Thom- 
as, or  Ivan  Thomasovitch,  to  be  strictly  Russian,  is 
unpowdered  and  unwhiskered.  There  is  no  medium 
in  a  serf's  shaving  here  ;  he  is  either  full-bearded  or 
gaol-cropped.  His  shirt  and  indeed  lower  habili- 
ments are  doubtful,  for  he  wears — over  all,  summer 
and  winter — a  huge  cloak  descending  to  his  heels, 
of  the  very  brightest  scarlet, — a  cloak  with  a  deep 
cape  and  a  high  collar.*  The  edges  of  this  garment 
are  passemented  with  broad  bands  of  gold  embroi- 
dered with  countless  double  eagles  on  black  velvet, 
and  these  have  such  a  weird  and  bat-like,  not  to  say 
demoniac  effect,  that  the  Muscovite  flunkey  clad  in 
this  flaming  garment,  and  with  an  immense  cocked- 
hat  stuck  fore  and  aft  on  his  semi-shaven  head,  bears 
a  fantastic  resemblance  to  an  India-house  beadle,  of 
whom  the  holy  inquisition  has  fallen  foul,  and  who, 
shorn  of  his  staff,  but  with  his  red  cloak  converted 
into  a  San  Benito,  is  riding  to  an  auto  da  fe  in  his 

*  The  Russians  are  extravagantly  fond  of  red.  That  a  thing  is 
red,  implies  with  them  that  it  is  beautiful ;  indeed,  they  have  but 
one  word  (preknasse)  to  express  both  redness  and  beauty.  The 
favourite  Russian  flower  is  the  rose ;  though,  alas  !  that  has  far 
more  frequently  to  be  admired  in  paper  or  wax  than  in  actual 
existence.  A  crimson  petticoat  is  the  holiday  dress  of  a  peasant 
girl :  and  to  have  a  red  shirt  is  one  of  the  dearest  objects  of  a 
moujik's  ambition. 


150  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

master's  carriage.  Some  general  officers  have  soldier- 
footmen,  who  sit  in  the  rumble  of  the  caleche  in  the 
military  gray  cloak  and  spiked  helmet.  The  ambas- 
sadors have  their  chasseurs  plumed,  braided,  and 
couteau-de-cliassed ;  but,  with  these  exceptions,  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  flunkey  is  wanting 
in  Petersburg.  Yet  everybody  keeps  a  carriage 
who  can  afford  it ;  and  many  do  so  who  can't.  I 
was  very  nearly  having  half  a  private  droschky  my- 
self ;  the  temptation  was  so  great,  the  horses  so 
good,  the  coachman  so  skilful,  the  difficulties  of 
pedestrianism  so  great,  the  public  conveyances  so 
abominably  bad.  As  I  have  remarked,  the  majority 
of  carriage-keepers  don't  take  footmen  out  with 
them.  I  have  seen  the  great  Prince  Dolgorould, 
the  chief  of  the  gendarmerie  and  secret  police,  the 
high  and  mighty  wooden-stick  in  waiting  at  whose 
very  name  I  tremble  still,  step  out  of  one  of  those 
modest  little  broughams  called  "  pill-boxes,"  open  it, 
and  close  the  door  as  if  he  knew  not  what  a  foot- 
man was,  and  walk  up  stairs  to  the  second  floor  of 
a  lodging-house,  with  his  stars,  his  ribbons,  his  hel- 
met, his  sword,  his  spurs,  unflunkeyed  and  unan- 
nounced. Fall  not,  however,  into  the  obvious  error 
of  imagining  that  Ivan  Thomasovitch  the  flunkey 
lacks  in  Russian  households  ;  within  doors  he 
swarms,  multiplies  himself  orientally  and  indefi- 
nitely ;  but,  out  of  doors,  Nous  Autres  do  without 
him. 

-  Two  words  more,  and  I  have  done  with  the  equi- 
pages of  the  great.  Although  there  are  probably  no 
people  on  earth  that  attach  so  much  importance  to 


THE   DROSCHKY.  151 

honorific  distinctions,  caste,  costumes,  and  "  sun, 
moon,  and  stars"  decorations  as  the  Russians;  their 
carriage-panels  are  singularly  free  from  the  boastful 
imbecilities  of  that  sham  heraldry  and  harlequinad- 
ing  patchwork  which  some  of  us  in  the  West  throw 
like  particoloured  snuff  into  the  eyes  of  the  world  to 
prove-  our  high  descent.  And,  goodness  knows,  the 
Russian  nobility  are  barbarically  well-born  enough. 
They  have  plenty  of  heraldic  kaleidoscope-work  at 
home ;  but  they  keep  it,  like  their  servants,  for  grand 
occasions.  For  ordinary  wear,  a  plain  coronet  on 
the  panel,  or — more  frequently  still-^-the  simple  ini- 
tials of  the  occupant,  are  thought  sufficient  for  a 
prince's  carriage. 

A  last  word.  Since  my  return  to  Western  Eu- 
rope I  have  noticed  that  the  dear  and  delightful  sex 
who  share  our  joys  and  double  our  woes — I  mean, 
of  course,  the  Ladies ! — have  adopted  a  new,  mar- 
vellou's,  and  most  eccentric  fashion  in  wearing- 
apparel.  I  allude  to  the  cunning  machines,  of  a 
balloon  form,  composed  of  crinoline,  whalebone, 
and  steel — called,  I  have  heard — sousjupes  bouffantes, 
and  which  I  conjecture  the  fair  creatures  wear  un- 
derneath their  dresses  to  give  them  that  swaying,  stag- 
gering nether  appearance,  which  is  so  much  admired 
— by  milliners — and  which  I  can  compare  to  noth- 
ing so  closely  as  the  Great  Bell  of  Bow  in  a  gale  of 
wind,  and  far  gone  in  the  dropsy.  What  have  the 
sous  jupes  bouffantes  to  do  with  the  coachmen  of  the 
Russian  boyards  ?  you  will  ask.  This.  For  a  very 
swell  coachman,  there  is  nothing  thought  more  ele- 
gant and  distinguished  than  a  most  exaggerated 


152  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

bustle.  The  unhappy  wretches  are  made  to  waspi- 
cate  their  waists  with  their  sashes  ;  and,  all  around 
in  a  hundred  plaits,  extend  the  skirts  of  their  caf- 
tans. What  species  of  under-garments  they  wear, 
or  what  mechanical  means  they  adopt  to  inflate 
their  skirts,  I  know  not;  but  they  have  exactly  the 
same  Tombola  appearance  as  our  fashionable  ladies. 
Isn't  it  charming,  ladies  ?  Only  twenty  years  since, 
you  borrowed  a  fashion  from  the  Hottentot  Venus, 
and  now  skirts  are  worn  d  la  Moujik  Russe. 

There  are  some  old  Russian  families  who  are  yet 
sufficiently  attached  to  ancient,  pigtail  observances, 
as  to  drive  four  horses  to  their  carriages.  The  lead- 
ers are  generally  a  long  way  ahead ;  there  is  a  pre- 
vailing looseness  in  the  way  of  traces ;  and  the 
postilion,  if  any,  sternly  repudiates  the  bare  idea  of 
a  jacket  with  a  two-inch  tail,  and  adheres  to  the 
orthodox  caftan  ;  a  portion  of  whose  skirts  he  tucks 
into  his  bucket-boots  along  with  his  galligaskins. 
Caftan  and  boots  and  breeches,  breeches,  boots,  and 
caftan,  bushy  beard  and  low-crowned  hat!  Dear 
reader,  how  often  shall  I  have  to  reiterate  these 
words — how  long  will  it  be  before  you  tire  of  them  ? 
There  are  sixty-five  millions  of  people  in  this  Val- 
ley of  the  Drybones ;  but  they  are  all  alike  in  their 
degree.  The  Russian  people  are  printed,  and  there 
are  thousands  of  impressions  of  gaudy  officers  struck 
in  colours,  gilt  and  tinselled  like  Mr.  Parks's  char- 
acters (those  that  cost  three-and-sixpence)  ;  and 
there  are  millions  of  humble  moujiks  and  ischvost- 
chiks,  roughly  pulled  and  hastily  daubed — only  a 
penny  plain  and  twopence  coloured. 


THE   CZATl'S    HIGHWAY.  153 

VII. 

THE  CZAR'S   HIGHWAY. 

".LET  me,"  said  somebody  who  knew  what  he 
was  saying,  "  write  the  ballads  of  a  people,  and  he 
may  write  their  history  who  will."  If  the  Czar  of 
all  the  Russias  would  only  allow  me  to  make  his 
roads  for  him,  the  great  problem  of  the  way  out  of 
barbarism  in  his  empire  could  be  solved  by  a  child. 
There  is  no  such  civilizer  as  a  good  road.  With 
even  an  imperfect  highway  disappear  highway- 
men, crawling  beggars,  dirty  inns  and  extortionate 
charges,  lazy  habits,  ignorance,  and  waste  lands. 
Our  shops,  our  horses'  legs,  our  boots,  our  hearts, 
have  all  benefited  by  the  introduction  of  Macadam  ; 
and  the  eighteen  modern  improvements  mentioned 
by  Sydney  Smith  can  all  be  traced,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, to  the  time  when  it  fortuitously  occurred  to 
the  astute  Scotchman  (where  are  his  Life  and 
Times,  in  twenty  volumes  ?)  to  strew  our  path  with 
pulverized  granite.  I  am  convinced  that  our  Ameri- 
can cousins  would  be  much  less  addicted  to  bowie- 
kniving,  revolveringj  expectorating,  gin-slinging,  and 
cow-hiding  the  members  of  their  legislature,  if  they 
would  only  substitute  trim,  level,  hedge-lined  high- 
ways for  the  vile  corduroy  roads  and  railway  tracks 
thrown  slovenly  anyhow,  like  the  clothes  of  a 
drunken  man,  across  prairies,  morasses,  half-cleared 
forests,  and  dried-up  watercourses,  by  means  of 


154  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

which  they  accomplish  their  thousand-mile  trips  in 
search  of  dollars.  What  a  dreadful,  though  delight- 
ful place  was  Paris  when  I  knew  it  first ! — foul  gut- 
ters rolling  their  mud-cataracts  between  rows  of 
palaces;  suburban  roads  alternating  between  dust- 
heaps  and  sloughs  of  despond ;  and  boulevards  so 
badly  paved,  that  the  out-patienced  population  were 
continually  tearing  them  up  to  make  barricades 
with.  There  have  been  no  emeutes  in  Paris  since 
boulevards  were  macadamized.  Much  of  the  Rib- 
bonism,  landlord-stalking  from  behind  hedges,  and 
Skibbereen  starvation  of  Ireland,  may  be  attributed 
to  the  baleful  roads  of  bygone  days,  which  were  full 
of  holes,  known  as  curiosities,  and  on  which  the 
milestones  were  so  capriciously  distributed,  that 
whereas  every  squire  (of  the  right  way  of  thinking) 
had  one  on  each  side  of  his  park-gates,  unpopular 
localities,  and  villages  where  tithe-proctors  dwelt, 
were  left  without  milestones  altogether.  Who  was 
it  that  was  chief  of  the  staff  to  murderous  Major- 
General  Mismanagement  in  the  Crimea  ?  The 
hideous  roads  from  Balaclava  to  the  front.  When 
the  railway  navvy  took  up  the  spade,  the  soldier's 
grave-digger  laid  his  mattock  down.  What  is  it 
that  impresses  us  mostly  with  the  grandeur  of  the 
civilization  of  that  stern,  strong  people  who  came  to 
Britain  with  Caesar,  but  the  highways  they  made, 
whose  foundations  serve  even  now  for  our  great 
thoroughfares,  and  which  remain  imperishable  monu- 
ments of  their  wisdom  and  industry — the  wonderful 
Roman  roads.  And  flout  nor  scout  me  none  for 
uttering  truisms  concerning  roads  in  their  relation 


TTIE   CZAR'S   HIGHWAY.  155 

to  civilization ;  for  Paris  is  rapidly  surpassing  our 
vaunted  London  City  in  excellence  of  pavement. 
New  Street,  Covent  Garden,  is  in  a  bad  way ;  the 
Victoria  Road,  Kensington,  leaves  much  to  be  de- 
sired ;  and  the  Commissioners  of  Turnpike  Trusts, 
all  over  the  country,  want  looking  after  sharply. 
There  is  need  for  us  to  have  sermons  on  the  better 
care  of  the  stones.  If  we  don't  keep  a  bright  look- 
out for  our  pavements,  we  shall  infallibly  retrograde 
— decay — as  a  nation  ;  and  M.  Ledru  Rollin  will 
rejoice.  If  we  are  unmindful  of  the  Queen's  high- 
way, we  shall  inevitably  come  to  clip  the  Queen's 
English,  and  break  the  Queen's  peace,  and  to  the 
dark  ages.  It  behoves  us  especially  to  be  watchful, 
for  our  protectors  never  forget  to  collect  the  Queen's 
taxes,  roads  or  no  roads. 

The  Czar's  highway,  which  is  literally  his — for 
every  thing  in  the  empire,  movable  and  immovable, 
animated  and  inanimated,  is  his  own  private  and 
personal  property  * — is  the  worst  highway  that  was 
ever  seen. 

The  Czar's  highway  in  his  two  metropolises,  in 
his  provinces  and  in  his  country  towns,  from  north  to 
south — from  Karlsgammen,  in  Lapland,  to  Sarafcchi- 
kovska'ia,  in  Astrakhan — is  the  most  abominable — 

*  I  remember  once  asking  a  Russian  gentleman  (not,  however, 
with  the  slightest  expectation  of  receiving  a  direct  answer)  the 
amount  of  the  Imperial  Civil  List.  He  scarcely  seemed  to  under- 
stand my  question  at  first ;  but  he  replied,  eventually,  that  his 
Majesty  "  affected  to  himself"  a  certain  gigantic  sum  (I  forget 
how  many  million  silver  roubles,  for  I  am  boldly  bankrupt  in 
statistics) ;  but  "  Que  voulez-vouz,"  he  added,  "  avec  un  Liste 
Civile  ?  TOUT  appartient  au  Czar,  ct  il  prend  ce  qu'il  vcut !  " 


156  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

I  can't  call  it  a  corduroy  road,  or  a  kidney-potato 
road,  or  a  sharp-shingle  road — the  most  miserable 
sackcloth-and-ashes  road  that  was  ever  invented  to 
delight  self-mortifying  pilgrims,  to  break  postilions' 
constitutions,  horses'  backs,  and  travellers'  hearts. 
There  is  the  iron  road,  as  all  men  know,  from  Peters- 
burg to  Pawlosky,  and  also  from  the  northern  capital 
to  Moscow.  This  last  is  kept  in  order  by  an  Amer- 
ican company,  and  is  a  road ;  but  you  understand 
that  there  can  be  railways  and  railways,  and  even 
out  of  rails  and  sleepers  can  Czarish  men  make  iron 
roads  to  scourge,  and  make  a  difficult  Avernus  to 
us,  withal.  From  Petersburg  to  Warsaw  there  is  a 
chaussee,  or  road,  which,  by  a  fiction  as  beautiful 
and  fantastic  as  a  poem  by  Mr.  Tennyson,  is  said  to 
be  macadamized.  It  is  rather  O'Adamized;  there 
is  a  great  deal  more  Irish  gammon  than  Scotch 
granite  about  it ;  but  it  is  perpetually  being  re- 
mended  at  the  express  command  of  the  emperor. 
When  he  travels  over  it,  the  highway  is,  I  dare  say, 
tolerable ;  for  the  autocrat  being  naturally  born  to 
have  the  best  of  everything,  his  subjects  have  an  ex- 
traordinary genius  for  supplying  him  with  the  very 
best,  and  the  very  best  it  is  for  the  time  being. 
When  the  Czar  is  coming,  rotting  rows  of  cabins 
change  into  smiling  villages,  bare  poles  into  flower- 
ing shrubs,  rags  into  velvet  gowns,  Polyphemus  be- 
comes Narcissus ;  blind  men  see,  and  lame  men 
walk,  so  to  speak.  The  Czar  can  turn  anything  ex- 
cept his  satraps'  hearts. 

Of  the  provincial  highways,  and  the  vehicles  that 
do   roll   upon   them — kibitkas,  telegas,   and   taran- 


THE  CZAR'S  HIGHWAY.  157 

tasses,  I  shall  have  to  speak  hereafter.  My  object 
in  this  paper  is  to  give  some  idea  of  the  pavement 
of  St.  Petersburg,  of  which  hitherto  you  have  had 
but  the  glimpse  of  a  notion  in  the  words  I  have  set 
down  about  ischvostchiks  and  concerning  drosch- 
kies.  I  have  come,  by  the  way,  on  a  new  reading 
of  the  former  multi-named  individual.  The  corre- 
spondent of  a  Belgian  newspaper  calls  him  by  the 
startling  appellation  of  Ishwoschisky.  I  am  not  far 
from  thinking  that  his  real  name  must  be  Ishmael ; 
for  every  man's  (writing)  hand  is  against  him,  and 
it  is  by  no  means  uncommon  for  his  hand  to  be 
against  every  man.  There  is  a  village  in  Carelia 
whose  sons  almost  exclusively  pursue  the  ischvost- 
chik  calling.  There  are  a  good  many  of  them  in 
St.  Petersburg,  where  they  have  a  high  reputation  as 
skilful  drivers,  and  not  quite  so  cheerful  a  renown 
for  being  all  murderers.  'Gin  an  ischvostchik  of  this 
celebrated  village  meet  with  a  drunken  or  a  sleepy 
fare  on  a  dark  night,  it  is  even  betting  that  he  will 
give  the  exact  reading  of  the  popular  Scotch  ditty, 
and  make  the  fare  into  a  "  body  "  before  he  has  long 
been  coming  through  the  ride. 

Many  persons  endeavour  to  explain  the  badness 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  pavement  by  the  severity  of 
the  climate,  and  the  treacherous  nature  of  the  soil 
on  which  the  city  is  built.  The  whole  place  is,  it 
must  be  confessed,  a  double-damned  Amsterdam  ; 
and  it  has  often  been  with  feelings  akin  to  horror 
that  I  have  peeped  into  a  hole  on  the  magnificent 
Nevskoi,  when  the  workmen  were  mending  the 
pavement — which  they  are  incessantly  occupied  in 


158  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

doing  in  some  part  of  the  street  during  the  summer 
months.  At  a  distance  of  perhaps  two  feet  from 
the  granite  slabs  of  the  footpath,  or  the  hexagonal 
wooden  blocks  of  the  roadway,  you  see  the  ominous 
rotting  of  wooden  logs  and  piles  on  which  the  whole 
city  is  built,  and  at  a  dreadfully  short  distance  from 
them  you  see  the  WATER — not  so  muddy,  not  so 
slimy,  but  the  real  water  of  the  Neva.  St.  Peters- 
burg has  been  robbed  from  the  river.  Its  palaces 
float  rather  than  stand.  The  Neva,  like  a  haughty 
courtezan,  bears  the  splendid  sham  upon  her  breast 
like  a  scarlet  letter,  or  the  costly  gift  of  a  lover  she 
hates.  She  revolted  in  eighteen  hundred  and  twen- 
ty four,  she  revolted  in  'thirty-nine,  she  revolted  in 
'forty-two,  and  tried  to  wash  the  splendid  stigma 
away  in  floods  of  passionate  tears.  She  will  cast  it 
away  from  her  some  day,  utterly  and  for  ever.  The 
city  is  an  untenable  position  now,  like  Naples.  It 
must  go  some  day  by  the  board.  Isaac's  church  and 
Winter  Palace ;  Peter  the  Great's  hut  and  Alexan- 
der's monolith  will  be  no  more  heard  of,  and  will  re- 
turn to  the  Mud,  their  father,  and  the  Ooze,  their 
mother. 

In  the  Nevsko'i  Perspective  and  the  two  Morskaias, 
violent  efforts  have  been  made  for  years  past,  in  order 
to  procure  something  like  a  decent  pavement.  There 
is  a  broad  footway  on  either  side,  composed  of  large 
slabs;  but  their  uncertain  foundation  causes  them 
now  to  settle  one  way,  now  on  the  other,  now  to 
present  a  series  of  the  most  extraordinary  angular 
undulations.  It  is  as  though  you  were  walking  on 
the  sloping  roofs  of  houses,  which  had  sunk  into  the 


THE    CZAR'S    HIGHWAY.  159 

boggy  soil  up  to  frieze  and  architrave ;  and  this  de- 
lusion is  aggravated  by  the  bornes,  or  corner-posts, 
set  up  to  prevent  carriages  encroaching  on  the  foot- 
pavement,  which  bornes,  being  little  stumps  of  wood, 
just  peering  from  the  earth  at  every  half-dozen  yards, 
or  so,  look  like  the  tops  of  lamp-posts.  But  the 
roof-scrambling  effect  is  most  impressive  during  the 
frequent  occasions  in  the  summer  months,  when 
the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg  are  illuminated.  Most 
of  the  birthdays  of  the  members  of  the  Imperial 
family  fall  between  May  and  August;  and  each 
scion  of  the  illustrious  house  of  Romanoff  has  an 
illumination  to  himself,  by  right  of  birth.  You, 
who  are  yet  fresh  from  the  graphic  and  glowing  de- 
scription of  the  coronation  illuminations  at  Moscow, 
by  the  man  who  fought  the  Battle  of  England  in 
the  Crimea,  better  and  more  bravely  than  the  whole 
brilliant  staff  who  have  been  decorated  with  the 
order  of  the  Bath,  and  who  would  have  gone  there, 
for  head-shaving  purposes,  long  ago,  if  people  had 
their  due — doubtless,  expect  a  very  splendid  account 
from  me  of  illuminations  at  St.  Petersburg.  But  it 
was  my  fortune  to  see  Russia,  not  in  its  gala  uni- 
form, with  its  face  washed,  and  all  its  orders  on : 
but  Russia  in  its  shirt  sleeves,  (with  its  caftan  off, 
leaving  the  vexed  question  of  shirts  or  no  shirts  in 
abeyance,  would  perhaps  be  nearer  the  mark,)  Rus- 
sia at-home,  and  not  expecting  visitors  till  Septem- 
ber— Russia  just  recovering  its  breath,  raw,  bruised, 
exhausted,  torn,  begrimed  from  a  long  and  bloody 
conflict. 

The  best  illuminations,  then,  that  met  my  gaze, 


160  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

were  on  the  birth-night  of  the  Empress-mother,  and 
consisted  of  an  indefinite  quantity  of  earthen  pots, 
filled  with  train-oil,  or  fat,  and  furnished  with  wicks 
of  tow.  These  being  set  alight  were  placed  in  rows 
along  the  pavement,  one  to  each  little  wooden  post, 
or  borne.  It  was  the  antediluvian  French  system 
of  lampions,  in  fact,  smelling  abominally,  smoking 
suffocatingly,  but  making  a  brave  blaze  notwith- 
standing, and,  in  the  almost  interminable  perspective 
of  streets  and  quays,  producing  a  very  curious  and 
ghastly  effect.  At  midnight  you  could  walk  a  hun- 
dred yards  on  the  Nevskoi,  without  finding  a  single 
soul  abroad  to  look  at  the  illuminations :  at  midnight 
it  was  broad  daylight.  The  windows  were  all  blind 
and  headless ;  what  distant  droschkies  there  may 
have  been,  made  not  the  thought  of  a  noise  on  the 
wooden  pavement;  and  these  rows  of  blinking,  flar- 
ing grease-pots  resting  on  the  earth,  led  you  to  fancy 
that  you  were  walking  on  the  roofs  of  a  city  of  the 
dead,  illuminated  by  corpse-candles.  Take  no  lame 
devil  with  you,  though,  good  student,  when  you 
walk  these  paving-stone  house-tops.  Bid  him  un- 
roof, and  what  will  it  avail  you  ?  There  are  no 
genial  kitchens  beneath,  no  meat  safes  before  whose 
wire-gauze  out'works  armies  of  rats  sit  down  in 
silent,  hopeless  siege ;  no  cellars  sacred  to  cats  and 
old  wine ;  no  dust-bins,  where  ravens  have  their 
savings-banks,  and  invest  their  little  economies 
secretly.  There  is  nothing  beneath,  but  the  cold, 
black  ooze  of  the  Neva,  which  refuses  to  divulge  its 
secrets,  even  to  devils — even  to  the  worsest  devil  of 
all,  the  police.  An  eminently  secretive  river  is  the 


THE    CZAIl'S   HIGHWAY.  161 

Neva.  Its  lips  are  locked  with  the  ice-key  for  five 
months.  It  tells  no  tales  of  the  dead  men  that  find 
their  way  into  it  somehow — even  when  the  frost  is 
sharpest,  and  the  ice  thickest.  Swiftly  it  carries  its 
ugly  secrets — swiftly,  securely,  with  its  remorseless 
current,  to  a  friend  in  whom  it  can  confide,  and  with 
whom  it  has  done  business  before — the  Gulf  of  Fin- 
land. Only,  once  a-year,  when  the  ice  breaks  up, 
the  Neva  is  taken  in  the  fact,  and  murder  will  out. 

As  for  the  gas-lamps  on  the  Czar's  highway,  they 
puzzle  a  stranger  in  Russia  terribly.  There  is  every 
element  of  civilization  in  St.  Petersburg,  from  Soy- 
er's  Relish  to  the  magnetic  telegraph ;  and,  of 
course,  the  Nevskoii  and  the  Morskai'as  have  their 
gas-lamps.  They  are  handsome  erections  in  bronze, 
real  or  sham,  rich  in  mouldings  and  metallic  foliage. 
On  the  quays,  the  lamp-posts  assume  a  different 
form.  They  are  great  wooden  obelisks,  like  sentry- 
boxes  that  have  grown  too  tall,  and  run  to  seed,  and 
they  are  bariole,  or  smeared  over  in  the  most  eccen- 
tric manner  with  alternate  bars  of  black  and  white 
paint.  In  Western  Europe,  these  inviting  spaces 
would  be  very  speedily  covered  with  rainbow-hued 
placards  relating  to  pills  and  plays  and  penny-news- 
papers ;  but  I  should  like  to  see  the  bill-sticker  bold 
enough  to  deface  his  Imperial  Majesty's  sentry-box 
lamp-posts,  with  his  sheet  of  double-crown  and  his 
paste-brush  !  This  is  no  place  for  the  famous  Paddy 
Clark,  who,  being  charged  before  a  magistrate  at 
Bow  Street,  with  the  offence  of  defacing  the  august 
walls  of  Apsley  House  with  a  Reform  placard,  un- 
blushingly  avowed  his  guilt,  and  added  that  he 


162  A   JOURNEY   DUB   NORTH. 

would  paste  a  bill  on  the  Duke  of  Wellington's 
back,  if  he  were  paid  for  it.  I  am  afraid  that  Mr. 
Clark  would  very  soon  be  pasting  bills  beyond  the 
Oural  Mountains  for  the  Siberian  bears  to  read,  if 
he  were  alive,  and  in  Russia ;  or,  that,  if  he  escaped 
exile,  he  would  swiftly  discover  that  the  Russian 
police  have  a  way  of  posting  bills  on  the  backs  of 
human  houses  very  plain  and  legible  to  the  view. 
They  always  print,  too,  in  red  ink.  These  black 
and  white  lamp-posts,  common,  by  the  way,  all  over 
Russia,  and  whose  simple  and  elegant  scheme  of 
embellishment  is  extended  to  the  verst-posts,  the 
sentry-boxes,  and  the  custom-house  huts  at  the  fron- 
tiers and  town-barriers,  are  an  emanation  from  the 
genius  of  the  beneficent  but  insane  autocrat,  Paul 
the  First;  their  peculiar  decoration  is  due  to  the 
same  imperial  maniac,  who  issued  oukases  concern- 
ing shoe-strings,  cocked-hats,  and  ladies'  muffs,  and 
whose  useful  career  was  prematurely  cut  short  in  a 
certain  frowning  palace  at  St.  Petersburg,  of  which 
I  shall  have  to  tell  by  and  by.  When  I  see  these 
variegated  erections,  I  understand  what  the  meaning 
is  of  the  mysterious  American  striped  pig.  This 
must  have  been  his  colour.*  It  must  in  justice  be 
admitted,  that  though  Paul  was  a  roaring  madman, 

*  Did  my  reader  ever  notice  the  curious  fancy  that  persons  not 
quite  right  in  their  minds  have  fof  stripes  and  chequers,  or  at 
least  for  parallel  lines?  Martin  van  Butchell  used  to  ride  a 
striped  pony.  I  saw  a  lunatic  in  Han  well  sit  for  hours  counting 
and  playing  with  the  railings.  Many  insane  persons  are. fasci- 
nated by  a  chess-board:  and  any  one  who  has  ever  had  a  brain 
fever  will  remember  the  horrible  attractions  of  a  striped  wall- 
paper. 


THE   CZAR'S   HIGHWAY.  163 

there  are  other  countries  where  the  sentry-boxes,  at 
least,  are  similarly  smeared.  I  happened,  lately,  to 
traverse  the  whole  breadth  of  the  miserable  kingdom 
of  Hanover,  coming  from  Hamburg ;  and  for  sixty 
miles  the  road-side  walls,  palings,  and  hedges,  were 
painted  in  stripes  of  black  and  yellow — the  national 
Hanoverian  colours.  I  do  not  like  thee,  Hanover, 
thee,  thy  king,  nor  coinage.  The  Hanoverian  post- 
man, wear  a  costume  seedily  imitative  of  our  Gen- 
eral Post- Office  employes  ;  but  the  scarlet  is  dingy 
and  the  black  cockade  a  most  miserable  mushroom. 
It  made  me  mad  to  see  the  letter-boxes,  and  custom- 
house walls,  and  railway  vans  all  flourished  over 
with  the  royal  initials  G.  R.  exactly  in  the  fat,  florid 
characters  we  have  seen  too  much  of  at  home,  and 
surmounted  by  a  bad  copy  of  the  English  crown. 
I  thought  we  were  well  rid  of  the  four  Georges  for 
good  and  all,  and  here  was  a  fifth  flourishing  about 
to  vex  me.  It  may  be  that  I  looked  at  Hanover,  its 
black  and  yellow  posts,  postmen,  and  king's  initials, 
with  somewhat  of  a  jaundiced  eye ;  for  I  had  to 
stop  at  Hanover  three  hours  in  the  dead  of  night, 
waiting  for  the  express  train  from  Berlin,  which  was 
behind  time,  as  usual,  and  crawled  into  the  station 
at  last,  like  an  express  funeral.  There  is  the  worst 
beer  at  Hanover — the  worst  cold  veal,  the  worst 

waitej but  let  me  go  back  to  the  lamp-posts  of 

Petersburg. 

Bronze  on  the  Nevsko'i ;  striped  sentry-boxes  on 
the  quays  ;  for  second-rate  streets,  such  as  the 
Galernaia-Oulitza,  or  Great  Galley  Street,  the  Po- 
dialskeskaia,  or  Street  of  the  Barbers,  more  econom- 


164  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

ical  lamp-posts  are  provided,  being  simply  great 
gibbets  of  rough  wood,  to  which  oil-lamps  are  hung 
in  chains.  There  are  other  streets  more  remote 
from  the  centre  of  civilization,  or  Nevskoi,  which 
are  obliged  to  be  contented  with  ropes  slung  across 
from  house  to  house,  with  an  oil-lamp  dangling  in 
the  middle  (the  old  Reverbere  plan)  ;  and  there  are  a 
great  many  outlying  streets  which  do  without  lamps 
all  the  year  round.  But  oil,  or  gas,  or  neither,  all 
the  posts  in  Petersburg  are  lampless  from  the  first 
of  May  to  the  first  of  August  in  every  year.  Dur- 
ing those  three  months  there  is,  meteorologically 
and  officially,  no  night.  It  sometimes  happens,  as 
in '  this  summer  last  past,  that  the  days  draw  in 
much  earlier  than  usual.  Towards  the  end  of  last 
July,  it  was  pitch  dark  at  eight  o'clock,  p.  M.  The 
government  of  the  Double  Eagle,  however,  does  not 
condescend  to  notice  these  aberrations  on  the  part 
of  the  clerk  of  the  weather.  The  government  night, 
as  duly  stamped  and  registered,  and  sanctified  by 
Imperial  oukases,  does  not  commence  till  nine  p.  M. 
on  the  first  of  August ;  and  then,  but  not  a  day  or 
hour  before,  the  lamps  are  lighted.  To  me,  the  first 
sign  of  gas  in  the  Nevskoi,  after  returning  from  a 
weary  journey,  was  a  beacon  of  hope  and  cheerful- 
ness ;  but  the  Russians  welcome  the  gas  back  with 
dolorous  faces  and  half-suppressed  sighs.  Gas  is 
the  precursor  of  the  sleety,  rainy,  sopping  autumn, 
with  its  fierce  gusts  of  west  wind ;  gas  is  the  herald, 
the  av ant-courier,  of  the  awful  winter  :  of  oven-like 
rooms,  nose-biting  outward  temperature,  frozen  fish, 
frozen  meat,  frozen  tears,  frozen  every  thing.  Some 


THE   CZAll'S   HIGHWAY.  165 

Russians  will  tell  you  that  the  winter  is  the  only 
time  to  enjoy  St.  Petersburg.  Then  there  are  balls, 
then  Montagnes  de  Glace,  then  masquerades,  then 
the  Italian  opera,  then  sleighing  parties,  then  cham- 
paigne  suppers.  With  warm  rooms,  and  plenty  of 
furs,  who  need  mind  the  winter  ?  But  give  a  Rus- 
sian a  chance  of  leaving  Russia,  and  see  to  whom 
he  will  give  the  preference, — to  the  meanest  moun- 
tebank at  a  wooden  theatre  in  Naples,  or  to  Mad- 
emoiselle Bosio  at  the  Balschoi- Theater  here.  The 
Russians  have  about  the  same  liking  for  their  winter 
as  for  their  government.  Both  are  very  splendid  ; 
but  it  is  uncommonly  hard  lines  to  bear  either  ;  and 
distance  (the  greater  the  better)  lends  wonderful 
enchantment  to  the  view  both  of  the  frozen  Neva 
and  the  frozen  despotism. 

A  few  of  the  great  shops  on  the  Nevskoi  and  the 
Morskaias  have  an  economical  supply  of  gas-lamps, 
and  there  is  a  restaurant  or  two  so  lighted.  Oil  and 
camphene  are,  however,  the  rule,  and  both  are  ex- 
tremely cheap  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  gas  is — 
not  so  much  from  the  scarcity  of  coal,  but  from  the 
enormous  expense  of  its  transit — a  very  dear  article 
of  consumption.  Some  of  the  second-class  shops 
have  oil-lamps,  with  polished  tin  reflectors ;  but  in 
the  humbler  underground  chandlery  shops,  or  lavkas, 
I  have  frequently  found  the  only  illumination  to  con- 
sist of  a  blazing  pine  torch,  or  a  junk  of  well-tarred 
cable,  stuck  in  a  sconce.  Rude,  or  altogether  want- 
ing in  light,  as  these  shops  may  be,  there  is  always, 
even  in  the  most  miserable,  a  dainty  lamp,  frequently 
of  silver,  suspended  by  silver  chains  before  the  image 
of  the  joss,  or  saint. 


166  A    JOURNEY    DUE    NORTH. 

In  the  year  'twenty-four,  a  French  company,  after 
an  immense  amount  of  petitioning,  intriguing,  and 
Tchinnovnik-bribing,  obtained  an  authorization  from 
the  government  to  light  the  whole  of  St.  Petersburg 
with  gas.  They  dug  conduits  into  which  the  water 
broke ;  they  laid  down,  pipes  which  the  workmen 
stole ;  they  went  so  far  as  to  construct  a  gasometer 
on  a  very  large  scale  behind  the  cathedral  of  Kasan. 
They  had  lighted  some  hundred  yards  of  the  Nevskoi 
with  gas,  when  a  tremendous  fire  took  place  at  their 
premises,  and  the  gasometer  exploded,  with  great 
havoc  of  life  and  property.  From  'twenty-four  to 
'thirty-nine,  a  period  of  fifteen  years,  not  a  syllable 
was  heard  about  the  formation  of  a  new  gas  com- 
pany. Public  opinion,  for  once,  was  stronger  than 
bribery ;  for  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  populace 
persisted  in  declaring  that  the  destruction  of  the  gas- 
ometer was  a  judgment  from  Heaven  to  punish  the 
Fransouski-Labarki)  the  French  dogs,  for  erecting 
their  new-fangled  and  heretical  building  in  the  vicin- 
age of  our  Lady  of  Kasan's  most  holy  temple.  I 
don't  think  that  Siberia  and  the  knout,  even,  would 
have  been  very  efficacious  in  making  the  moujiks 
work  with  a  will  at  building  new  premises  for  the 
offending  pipes  and  meters.  Gas  is  heretical  ;  but 
the  Russians  are  slightly  more  tolerant  of  some  other 
institutions  that  exist  to  this  day  just  behind  and  all 
around  the  most  holy  Kasan  church,  whose  immedi- 
ate neighbourhood  enjoys  an  extended  reputation  as 
being  the  most  infamous  with  respect  to  morality  in 
St.  Petersburg.  Strange  that  it  should  be  the  same 
in  the  shadow  of  Westminster's  twin  towers',  in  the 


THE   CZAR'S   HIGHWAY.  167 

shameful  little  dens  about  the  Parvis  Notre  Dame 
at  Paris,  in  the  slums  of  St.  Patrick's,  Dublin. 

The  new  gas  company  have  not  done  much  dur- 
ing the  last  sixteen  years.  In  the  suburbs  there  is 
scarcely  any  gas ;  and  the  gas  itself  is  of  very  infe- 
rior quality,  pale  and  flickering,  and  grudgingly  dealt 
out.  I  need  not  say  that  the  lamps  are  placed  as 
high  up  as  possible.  The  professional  thieves  would 
extinguish  them  else,  or  the  Russians  would  steal 
the  gas, — an  act  of  dishonesty  that,  at  first  sight, 
seems  impossible,  but  which,  when  you  become 
better  acquainted  with  my  Sclavonic  friends, — with 
the  exquisite  art  by  which  they  contrive  to  steal  the 
teeth  out  of  your  head,  and  the  flannel  jacket  off 
your  body,  without  your  being  aware  of  the  sub- 
traction,— will  appear  quite  facile  and  practicable. 
Gas  in  Russia !  I  little  thought — writing  the  secrets 
of  the  Gas  in  this  journal  three  years  ago,  and  vainly 
thinking  that  I  knew  them — that  I  should  ever  see 
a  Russian  or  a  Russian  gas  lamp. 

The  huge  open  places,  or  Ploschads,  like  stony 
seas,  into  which  the  gaunt  streets  empty  themselves, 
are  uniformly  paved  with  granitous  stones,  of  which 
the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Finland  furnish  an  inex- 
haustible supply.  This  pavement,  if  arranged  with 
some  slight  regularity,  would  be  in  the  early  stage 
of  progress  towards  tolerable  walking  space ;  but 
the  foundations  being  utterly  rotten,  treacherous, 
and  quicksandy,  the  unhappy  paving-stones  tumble 
about  in  a  stodge  of  mud  and  sand ;  and  the  Plos- 
chads are,  consequently,  almost  incessantly  under  re- 
pair. This  is  especially  the  case  in  the  month  of  April, 


168  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

at  the  time  of  the  general  thaw.  Part  of  the  pave- 
ment sinks  down,  and  part  is  thrown  up — the  scoria? 
of  small  mud  volcanoes.  Thousands  of  moujiks 
are  immediately  set  to  work,  but  to  very  little  pur- 
pose. The  ground  does  not  begin  to  settle  before 
May ;  and  when  I  arrived  in  St.  Petersburg,  many 
of  the  streets  were,  for  pedestrians,  absolutely  im- 
passable. The  immense  parallel  series  of  streets  at 
Wassili-Ostrov — Linies,  as  they  are  called — and 
which  are  numbered  from  one  to  sixteen,  as  in 
America,  were  simply  bogs,  where  you  might  drive, 
or  wade,  or  stride  through  on  stilts,  but  in  which 
pedestrianism  was  a  matter  of  hopeless  impossibility. 
The  government,  or  the  municipality,  or  the  police, 
or  the  Czar,  had  caused  to  be  constructed  along  the 
centre  of  these  Linies,  gigantic  causeways  of  wooden 
planking,  each  above  a  mile  in  length,  perhaps,  raised 
some  two  feet  above  the  level  of  the  mud,  and  along 
which  the  dreary  processions  of  Petersburg  pedes- 
trians were  enabled  to  pass.  This  was  exceedingly 
commodious,  as  long  as  you  merely  wanted  to  walk 
for  walking  sake ;  but  of  course,  wherever  a  per- 
spective intersected  the  Linie,  there  was  a  break  in 
the  causeway,  and  then  you  saw  before  you,  without 
the  slightest  compromise  in  the  way  of  step,  a  yawn- 
ing abyss  of  multi-coloured  mud.  Into  this  you  are 
entitled  either  to  leap,  and  disappear,  like  Edgar  of 
Ravenswood,  or  to  wallow  in  it  d  la  pig,  or  to  en- 
deavour to  clear  it  by  a  hop,  step,  and  a  jump.  The 
best  mode  of  proceeding,  on  the  whole,  is  to  hail  a 
droschky  or  a  moujik,  and,  like  Lord  Ullin,  offer  him, 
not  a  silver  pound,  but  sundry  copper  copecks,  to 


THE   CZAR'S   HIGHWAY.  169 

carry  you  across  the  muddy  ferry ;  and  this,  again, 
may  be  obviated  by  your  chartering  an  ischvostchik's 
vehicle  in  the  first  instance,  and  leaving  the  cause- 
way to  those  who  like  leaping  before  they  look. 

The  ground  having  become  a  little  more  solid,  the 
pavement  might  naturally  be  expected  to  improve. 
So  it  does,  on  the  Nevsko'i ;  but,  in  the  suburbs,  the 
occupant  of  each  house  is  expected  to  see  to  the 
proper  state  of  repair  of  the  pavement  immediately 
before  his  dwelling.  As  the  Russian  householder 
is  not  precisely  so  much  enamoured  of  his  city  and 
government  as  to  make  of  his  allotted  space  of 
street  a  sort  of  Tom  Tidler's  ground,  with  silver 
roubles  and  gold  imperials,  or  to  pave  it  with  por- 
phyry, Carrara  marble,  or  even  plain  freestone,  he 
ordinarily  employs  the  cheapest  and  handiest  mate- 
rials that  his  economy  or  his  convenience  suggests. 
The  result  is  a  most  astonishing  paving-salad,  in 
which  flints,  shards  and  pebbles,  shingles,  potsherds, 
brickbats,  mortar,  plaster,  broken  bottles,  and  pure 
dirt  are  all  amalgamated.  The  mosaic  is  original, 
but  trying  to  the  temper — destructive  to  the  boots, 
and  agonizing  to  the  corns. 

On  the  Nevskoi',  almost  every  variety  of  pavement 
has  been  successively  tried ;  but  with  very  indiffer- 
ent success.  From  Macadam  to  India-rubber,  ea'ch 
material  has  had  its  day.  Asphalte  was  attempted, 
but  failed  miserably,  cracking  in  winter  and  fairly 
melting  in  summer.  Then  longitudinal  boards  were 
laid  down  on  the  carriage-ways,  in  imitation  of  the 
plank  roads  in  the  suburbs  of  New  York.  Finally, 
M.  Gourieff  introduced  the  hexagonal  wooden  pave- 


170  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

ment  with  which,  in  London,  we  are  all  acquainted. 
This,  with  continuous  reparation,  answers  pretty 
well,  taking  into  consideration  that  equality  of  sur- 
face seems  utterly  unattainable,  that  the  knavish 
contractors  supply  blocks  so  rotten  as  to  be  worth- 
less a  few  days  after  they  are  put  down,  and  that  the 
horses  are  continually  slipping  and  frequently  falling 
on  the  perilous  highway.  It  is  unpleasant,  also,  to 
be  semi-asphyxiated  each  time  you  take  your  walks 
abroad,  by  the  fumes  of  the  infernal  pitch-caldrons, 
round  which  the  moujik  workmen  gather,  like 
witches. 

The  long  and  splendid  lines  of  quays  (unrivalled 
in  magnificence  of  material,  construction,  and  per- 
spective in  the  whole  world)  are  paved  with  really 
noble  blocks  of  Finland  granite.  It  is  as  melan- 
choly as  irritating  to  see  the  foul  weeds  growing  at 
the  kerbs ;  to  be  obliged  to  mount  to  them  (they 
are  some  fourteen  inches  above  the  level  of  the  road) 
by  a  wretched  monticule  of  mud  or  dust,  like  a  va- 
grant's footway  through  a  broken  hedge ;  to  mark 
how  many  of  the  enormous  slabs  are  cracked  right 
across  ;  and  how,  at  every  six  steps  or  so,  a  block  has 
settled  down  below  the  level,  so  as  to  form  the  bed 
of  a  pool  of  foul  water  into  which  you  splash. 

Any  one  can  comprehend,  now,  why  every  street 
in  the  Czar's  gorgeous  metropolis  is  a  Via  Dolorosa, 
and  why  there  are  so  many  thousand  ischvostchiks 
in  St.  Petersburg.  Looking-glass  slipperiness  in 
winter;  unfordable  mud  in  spring ;  simooms  of  dust 
in  summer ;  lakes  of  sloppy  horrors  in  autumn : 
these  are  the  characteristics  of  the  Czar's  highway. 


THE   CZAR'S   HIGHWAY.  171 

I  know  impossibilities  cannot  be  accomplished ;  I 
know  the  horrible  climate  can't  be  mended ;  but  I 
have  hopes  of  the  pavement  yet.  There  is  a  certain 
portion  of  the  Balchoi  Morskaia  which  has,  for 
about  ten  yards,  a  perfectly  irreproachable  pavement. 
The  legend  runs  that  the  Czar  Nicholas,  of  imper- 
ishable memory,  slipped  and  fell  on  his  august  back 
hereabouts  some  years  ago,  and  that  he  signified  his 
wish  to  the  inhabitants  of  that  part  of  the  Morskaia 
to  have  the  pavement  improved,  or  to  know  the  rea- 
son why.  It  was  improved  with  electric  celerity, 
and  it  has  been  a  model  pavement  ever  since.  I  am 
not  the  Czar  Nicholas,  nor  the  Czar  Alexander,  nor  a 
bridge  and  pavement  engineer,  nor  a  contractor  for 
paving  and  lighting.  I  only  point  out  the  wrong, 
and  leave  it  to  others  to  suggest  the  remedy.  But 
until  the  Czar's  highway  is  improved,  both  intra  and 
extra  muros,  so  long  will  there  be  barbarism  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  Venice  of  the  north.  When 
Petersburg  is  well  paved,  then  will  the  power  of  the 
stick  decay,  and  the  Tchinn  no  longer  steal :  but  this 
is  too  much  in  the  Nostradamus  style  of  prophecy. 
When  Russia  has  better  roads,  let  us  hope  that  there 
will  be  better  people  to  travel  on  them,  your  humble 
servant  included. 


172  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

vni. 

GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE   GREAT   BAZAAR. 

IN  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  Kasan,  Odessa,  Kieff, 
Wladimir,  Smolensk,  Novgorod,  and  Ekaterinoslaf 
— not  only  in  these,  but  in  every  Russian  government 
town  whose  proportions  exceed  those  of  a  village — 
there  is  a  Gostinnoi-dvor,  (literally,  Things  Yard, 
cour  aux  choses,}  or  general  bazaar,  for  the  sale  of 
merchandise  and  dry  provisions.  The  conquered 
and  treaty-acquired  provinces — Polish,  Swedish, 
German,  and  Turkish — have  their  markets  and  em- 
poria ;  but  the  Gostinnoi-dvor  is  an  institution 
thoroughly  and  purely  Russian,  and  thoroughly 
Asiatic.  It  will  be  my  province,  in  papers  to  come, 
to  speak  of  the  Gostinnoi-dvor  at  Moscow,  in  which 
the  native  and  humble  Russian  element  is  more 
strongly  pronounced,  and  which  is  a  trifle  more 
picturesque,  and  a  great  deal  dirtier,  than  its  sister 
establishment  in  Petropolis.  To  the  Gostinnoi-dvor, 
then,  of  St.  Petersburg,  I  devote  this  paper.  It  is 
vaster  in  size,  and  incomparably  more  magnificent 
in  proportions  and  contents,  than  any  of  its  provin- 
cial rivals  ;  and  to  me  it  is  much  more  interesting. 
It  is  here  that  you  can  watch  in  its  fullest  develop- 
ment that  most  marvellous  mixture  of  super-civiliza- 
tion and  ultra-barbarism  ;  of  dirt  and  perfumes ;  ac- 
complished, heartless  skepticism,  and  naive  though 
gross  superstition ;  of  prince  and  beggar ;  poodle 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GREAT   BAZAAR.          173 

and  bear  ;  prevailing  tyrant  and  oppressed  creature, 
which  make  St.  Petersburg  to  me  one  magnificent, 
fantastic  volume ;  a  French  translation  of  the  Ara- 
bian Nights,  bound  in  Russia,  illustrated  with  Byzan- 
tine pictures,  and  compiled  by  slaves  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  masters  as  luxurious  as  the  old  Persians,  as 
astute  and  accomplished  as  the  Greeks,  as  cruel  as 
the  Romans,  as  debauched  as  those  who  dwelt  in 
the  Destroyed  Cities,  and  whom  it  is  a  sin  to 
name. 

In  seventeen  hundred  and  fifty,  Russia  being  happy 
under  the  sway  of  the  benign  Czarine  Elizabeth — 
the  want  of  a  central  bazaar  being  sensibly  felt  in 
the^welling  capital,  and  nothing  existing  of  the  kind 
but  a  tumble-down  row  of  wooden  barracks,  as  filthy 
as  they  were  inconvenient,  hastily  run  up  by  con- 
victs and  Swedish  prisoners  in  the  days  of  Petri- 
Velike — an  enormous  edifice  of  timber  was  con- 
structed on  the  banks  of  the  Mo'ika,  close  to  what 
was  then  called  the  Green  Bridge,  but  is  now  known 
as  the  Polizeiskymost  or  Pont  de  Police.  This  was 
the  first  Gostinnoi-dvor  in  St.  Petersburg.  Five 
years  later  it  incurred  the  fate  of  theatres  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  and  of  every  class  of  buildings  in  Rus- 
sia,— that  species  of  architectural  measles  known  as 
a  fire.  It  was  burnt  to  the  ground,  together  with  a 
great  portion  of  the  quarter  of  the  city  in  which  it 
was  situated ;  and  its  reerection,  in  stone,  was  soon 
after  commenced  on  the  spot  where  it  now  stands : 
on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  Nevskoi  Perspective,  and 
about  a  mile  from  the  chapel-spire  of  the  Admiralty. 
It  forms  an  immense  trapezoid,  framed  between  four 


174  'A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

streets.  Its  two  principal  facades  front  the  Nevsko'i 
and  the  Sadovvaia,  or  Great  Garden  Street,  which 
last  intersects  the  Perspective  opposite  the  Imperial 
Library.  The  principal  facade  is  one  hundred  and 
seventy-two  sagenes  long.  There  are  three  archines 
to  a  sagene,  or  eighty-four  inches  ;  I  think,  therefore, 
that  I  am  right,  according  to  Cockeroffsky,  in  saying 
that  there  is  a  frontage  of  twelve  hundered  and  four 
feet,  or  more  than  four  hundred  English  yards,  to 
the  Gostinnoi-dvor.  The  reconstruction  in  stone  did 
not  extend  very  far.  Funds  came  in  too  slowly ;  or, 
more  probably,  were  spent  too  quickly  by  those  in- 
trusted with  them  ;  and,  for  a  long  time,  the  rest  of 
the  bazaar  consisted  of  rows  of  barracks  and  booths 
in  timber,  which  were  all  duly  reconsumed  by  fire 
in  seventeen  hundred  and  eighty.  The  Gostinnoi'- 
dvor  was  then  taken  in  hand  by  the  superb  Cather- 
ine, who  had  a  decided  genius  for  solidity  and 
durability  in  architecture ;  and  under  her  auspices, 
the  great  Things  Yard  assumed  the  form  it  now 
presents.  Huge  as  it  is,  it  only  forms  a  part  of  that 
which  the  Russians  call  the  Gorod  or  City  of  Ba- 
zaars; for  immediately  adjoining  it — inferior  in  splen- 
dour of  structure,  but  emulous  in  stores  of  merchan- 
dise and  vigour  of  traffic,  are  three  other  bazaars, — 
the  Apraxine-dvor,  the  Stehoukine-dvor,  and  the 
Tolkoutchji-rinok,  or  Great  Elbow-market,  which 
last  is  the  Rag  Fair  or  Petticoat  Lane  of  St.  Peters- 
burg :  all  the  old  clothes,  and  a  great  proportion  of 
the  stolen  goods,  of  the  capital  being  there  bought 
and  sold. 

On  the  same  side  of  the  way  as  the  Gostinno> 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE   GREAT   BAZAAR.  175 

dvor  on  the  Nevskoi,  and  close  to  the  commence- 
ments of  its  arcades,  is  the  enormous  edifice  of  the 
Douma,  or  Hotel  de  Ville.  This  was  originally 
built  of  wood,  but  has  been  gradually  repaired  and 
enlarged  with  stone,  and  has  slowly  petrified,  as 
men's  minds  are  apt  to  do  in  this  marmorifying 
country.  Its  heart  of  oak  is  now  as  hard  as  the 
nether  millstone ;  and  stucco  pilasters,  and  cornices 
in  Grim-Tartar  Corinthian,  together  with  abundance 
of  whitewash  and  badigeonnement,  conceal  its  primi- 
tive log  walls.  This  huge  place  (what  public  build- 
ing in  Petersburg  is  not  huge  ?)  is  facetiously  sup- 
posed to  be  the  seat  of  the  municipal  corporation  of  St. 
Petersburg.  There  is  a  civil  governor,  or  Lord  Mayor, 
it  is  true,  who  is  officially  of  considerably  less  account 
than  the  signification  of  an  idiot's  tale  in  the  hands 
of  M.  le  General  Ignatieff,  the  military  Governor- 
General  of  St.  Petersburg,  without  whose  written 
authority  no  person  can  leave  the  capital.  There  is  a 
president  and  six  burgomasters,  and  a  Council  of  Ten 
notable  citizens ;  but  all  and  every  one  of  them — gov- 
ernors civil  and  governors  military,  burgomasters,  and 
notables — are  members  of  the  celebrated  and  artistic 
corps  of  Marionnettes,  of  whose  performances  at 
Genoa  and  at  the  Adelaide  Gallery  most  people 
must  have  heard,  and  who  have  a  theatre  on  a  very 
large  scale  indeed  in  Holy  Russia.  They  are  beau- 
tifully modelled,  dressed  with  extreme  richness,  (espe- 
cially as  regards  stars  and  crosses,)  are  wonderfully 
supple  in  the  joints,  and  have  the  most  astonishing 
internal  mechanism  for  imitating  the  sounds  of  the 
human  voice.  The  strings  of  these  meritorious 


176  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

automata  are  pulled  by  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of 
Dolgorouki,  who  succeeded  that  eminent  performer, 
M.  Orloff,  as  chief  of  the  gendarmerie  and  High 
Police,  and  manager  (under  the  rose)  of  sixty-five 
millions  of  Marionnettes.  So  perfectly  is  he  master 
of  the  strings  of  his  puppets,  and  so  well  is  he  ac- 
quainted with  the  departments  behind  the  scenes  of 
the  Theatre  Royal,  Russia,  that  the  ostensible  lessee 
and  manager,  Alexander  Nicolaievitch,  who  inherited 
the  property  from  his  father,  Nicolaialeosandrovitch, 
(an  enterprising  manager,  but  too  fond  of  heavy 
melodramas  of  the  startling  order,)  is  said  to  be 
rather  afraid  of  his  stage-manager.  A.  N.  is  a  mild 
and  beneficent  middle-aged  young  man,  whose  dram- 
atic predilections  are  supposed  to  lean  towards 
light  vaudevilles  and  burlettas,  making  all  the  char- 
acters happy  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  He  is  not 
indisposed  either,  they  say,  to  many  free  transla- 
tions from  the  French  and  English ;  but  the  stage- 
manager  of  the  Marionnettes  won't  hear  of  such  a 
thing,  and  continues  to  keep  the  tightest  of  hands 
over  his  puppets.  The  most  curious  feature  in  all 
this  is,  that  the  stage-manager  has  himself  a  mas- 
ter whom  he  is  compelled,  no  one  knows  why,  to 
obey. 

This  master — a  slow,  cruel,  treacherous,  dishonest 
tyrant — is  never  seen,  but  dwells  remote  from  mortal 
eyes,  though  not  from  their  miserable  ken,  like  the 
Grand  Lama.  His — her — its  name  is  System.  Lib- 
eral, nay,  democratic  stage-managers,  have  been 
known  to  assume  the  government  of  the  sixty-five 
million  dolls,  and  forthwith,  in  their  blind  obedience 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GREAT   BAZAAR.  177 

to  system,  to  become  intolerable  oppressors,  spies, 
and  thieves.  Things  have  gone  wrong  before  now 
in  the  Theatre  Royal;  and  several  lessees  have  died 
of  sore  throat,  of  stomachache,  of  headache,  and  of 
compression  of  the  oesophagus.  But  this  abomina- 
ble System  has  lived  through  all  vicissitudes,  and 
though  immensely  old,  is  as  strong  and  wicked  as 
ever.*  The  old  hypocrite  gives  out  occasionally  that 
he  is  about  to  reform ;  but  the  only  way  to  reform 
that  hoary  miscreant,  is  to  strangle  him  at  once,  and 
outright.  Your  fingers  are  not  unaccustomed  to  this 
work,  most  noble  Boyards. 

The  only  timber  yet  unshivered  of  the  Douma,  is 
the  great  watchtower,  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in 

*  A  magnificent  diamond  tdbatiere  full  of  snuff  has  recently 
been  thrown  inTo  the  eyes  of  Western  Europe  from  the  corona- 
tion throne  at  Moscow.  The  only  real  abolition  of  a  grievance, 
in  this  much-belauded  manifesto,  is  the  removal  of  part  of  the  tax 
on  passports  to  native  Russians,  who,  if  they  had  families,  were 
formerly  obliged  to  pay  something  like  four  hundred  pounds 
a-year  to  the  government  while  travelling.  The  political  amnesty 
is  a  cruel  farce ;  not  but  that  I  believe  the  Emperor  Alexander 
to  be  (though  deficient  in  strength  of  mind)  a  sovereign  of 
thorough  liberal  tendencies,  and  of  extreme  kindness  of  heart ; 
but  he  dares  not  accomplish  a  tithe  of  the  reforms  he  meditates. 
I  was  speaking  one  day  to  an  intelligent  Russian  on  this  subject, 
(he  was  a  republican  and  a  socialist,  but  an  accomplished  gentle- 
man,) who,  so  far"  from  blaming  the  Czar  for  his  meagre  conces- 
sions to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  made  a  purely  Russian  excuse  for 
him :  "  Quo  voulez-vous  ?  "  he  said,  "  le  Tsar  lui-meme  a  peur 
d'etre  rosse  par  la  Police  Secrete."  The  idea  of  the  Autocrat  of 
all  the  Russias  being  deterred  from  increased  liberalism  by  bodily 
fear  of  the  STICK  is  sufficiently  extravagant ;  but  there  is,  never- 
theless, a  great  deal  of  truth  in  the  locution. 


ITS  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

height,  which  is  entirely  of  sham  marble,  but  real 
wood.  There  is  a  curious  telegraphic  apparatus  of 
iron  at  the  summit,  and  in  this  work  the  different 
fire-signals.  They  are  in  constant  employment. 

I  can  imagine  no  better  way  of  conveying  a  palpa- 
ble notion  of  things  I  have  seen  in  this  strange  land, 
than  to  institute  comparisons  between  things  Rus- 
sian, which  my  reader  will  never  know,  I  hope,  save 
through  the  medium  of  faithful  travellers,  and  things 
familiar  to  us  all  in  London  and  Paris.  So.  If  you 
take  one  avenue  of  the  glorious  Palais  Royal,  say 
that  where  the  goldsmith  and  jewellers'  shops  are, 
and  with  this  combine  the  old  colonnade  of  the 
Regent's  Quadrant;  if  to  this  you  add  a  dwarfed 
semblance  of  the  Piazza  in  Covent  Garden — espe- 
cially as  regards  the  coffee-stalls  at  early  morning ; 
if  you  throw  in  a  dash  of  the  Cloisters  of  West- 
minster Abbey — taking  care  to  Byzantinize  all  the 
Gothic,  but  keeping  all  the  chequered  effects  of 
chiaro-oscuro ;  if,  still  elaborating  your  work,  you 
piece  on  a  fragment  of  that  musty  little  colonnade 
out  of  Lower  Regent  Street,  which  ought  to  belong 
to  the  Italian  Opera  House,  but  doesn't,  and  at 
whose  corner  Mr.  Seguin's  library  used  to  be ;  if,  as 
a  final  architectural  effort,  you  finish  off  with  a  few 
yards  of  the  dark  entry  in  Canterbury  Cathedral 
yard,  and  with  as  much  as  you  like  (there  is  not 
much)  of  that  particularly  grim,  ghostly,  and  mil- 
dewed arcade  at  the  Fields  corner  of  Great  Queen 
Street,  Lincoln's  Inn :  if  you  make  an  architectural 
salmagundy  of  all  these ;  spice  with  a  flavour  of  the 
delightful  up-and-down,  under-the-basement,  and 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GREAT   BAZAAR.  179 

over-the-tiles,  streets  of  Chester;  garnish  with  that 
portion  of  the  peristyle  of  the  Palace  of  the  Institute 
in  Paris,  where  the  print-stalls  are;  and  serve  up 
hot  with  reminiscences  of  what  old  Exeter  'Change 
must  have  been  like  ;  you  will  have  something  of  a 
skeleton  notion  of  the  outward  appearance  of  the 
Gostinnoi-dvor.  Further  to  educate  the  eye,  I  must 
relate,  that  round  all  the  pillars  there  is  a  long  Low- 
ther  Arcade  broke  loose,  of  toys  and  small  ware; 
that  the  Palais- Royal-like  shops  are  curiously  dove- 
tailed with  bits  of  the  Bezesteen  at  Constantinople ; 
that  amongst  the  diamonds  and  gold  lace  there  is  a 
strong  tinge  of  Holywell  Street :  to  plant  the  photo- 
graph well  in  the  stereoscope,  I  must  beg  my  reader 
to  endeavour  to  imagine  this  London  and  Paris  med- 
ley transplanted  to  Russia.  There  is  a  roaring  street 
outside,  along'  which  the  fierce-horsed  and  fierce 
driven  droschkies  fly ;  through  the  interstices  of  the 
arches,  you  see,  first  droschkies,  then  dust,  then  pal- 
aces, palaces,  palaces,  then  a  blue,  blue  sky ;  within 
a  crowd  of  helmets,  gray  greatcoats,  beards,  boots,  red 
shirts,  sheepskins,  sabres,  long  gray  cloaks,  pink  bon- 
nets, and  black  velvet  mantles,  little  children  in  fancy 
bonnets ;  nurses  in  crimson  satin,  and  pearl  tiaras ; 
and  all  this  circulating  in  an  atmosphere  where  the 
Burlington  Arcade-like  odour  of  pomatum  and  bou- 
quet a  la  reine  (for  perfumes  abound  in  the  Gostinnoi- 
dvor)  struggles  with  that  of  Russia  leather,  wax- 
candles,  and  that  one  powerful,  searching,  oleaginous 
smell,  which  is  compounded  of  Heaven  knows  what, 
but  which  is  the  natural,  and  to  the  manor-born, 
smell  of  the  sainted  land.  Mincf,  too,  that  the  roofs 


180  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

are  vaulted,  and  that  no  lamps,  save  sacred  ones,  are 
ever  allowed  to  be  here  lighted ;  and  that  at  about 
every  interval  of  ten  yards  there  is  a  frowning  arch- 
way whose  crown  and  spandrils  are  filled  in  with 
holy  pictures,  richly  framed  in  gold  and  silver,  and 
often  more  richly  jewelled.  For  in  this,  the  special 
home  and  house  of  call  for  commercial  roguery,  the 
arrangements  for  the  admired  Fetish-worship  are  on 
a  very  grand  and  liberal  scale. 

A  lamp  suspended  before  the  picture  of  a  saint  is 
supposed  to  carry  an  indisputable  policy  of  insur- 
ance with  it  in  its  sacred  destination ;  but,  votive 
lamps  apart,  not  a  light  is  allowed  at  any  time, 
night  or  day,  in  the  Gostinnoi'-dvor.  There  are  no 
cigar-shops,  it  need  scarcely  be  said — nor  magasins 
for  the  sale  of  lucifer-matches.  The  Russians  have 
a  peculiar  horror  of,  and  yet  fondness  for,  lucifer- 
matches,  or  spitchki,  as  they  are  called.  There  is  a 
popular  notion  among  servants  and  peasants,  that 
they  are  all  contraband,  (I  never  had  the  slightest 
difficulty  in  purchasing  them  openly,)  and  that  their 
sale — except  to  nobles,  of  course — is  prohibited  by 
the  government.  There  are  so  many  things  you 
may  not  do  in  Russia,  that  I  should  not  have  been 
the  least  surprised  if  this  had  really  been  the  case. 
The  Russian  matches,  I  may  add,  are  of  the  most 
infamous  quality — one  in  about  twenty  igniting.  I 
believe  that  it  is  considered  rather  mauvals  ton  than 
otherwise  if  you  do  not  frictionize  them  on  the  wall 
to  obtain  a  light.  I  had  a  Cossack  servant  on 
whom,  on  my  departure  from  Russia,  I  bestowed  a 
large  box  of  wax-taper  matches  I  had  brought  from 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GREAT   BAZAAR.  181 

Berlin ;  and  I  verily  believe  that  he  was  more  grat- 
ified with  the  gift  than  with  the  few  paper  roubles 
I  gave  him  in  addition. 

As  soon  as  it  is  dusk  the  shops  of  the  Gostinnoi- 
dvor  are  shut  and  the  early-closing  movement 
carried  into  practical  operation  by  hundreds  of 
merchants  and  shopmen.  Within  a  very  recent 
period,  even,  so  intense  was  the  dread  of  some  fresh 
conflagration  that  no  stove  or  fireplace,  not  so  much 
as  a  brazier  or  chaufferette,  was  suffered  to  exist 
within  the  bazaar.  The  unfortunate  shopkeepers 
wrapped  themselves  up  as  well  as  they  could  in  pe- 
lisses of  white  wolfskin,  (which  in  winter,  forms  still 
a  distinctive  item  of  their  costume ;)  and  by  one 
ingenious  spirit  there  was  invented  a  peculiar  casque 
or  helmet  of  rabbit-skin,  which  had  a  fur  visor  but- 
toning over  the  nose  something  after  the  absurd 
manner  of  the  convicts'  caps  at  Pentonville  prison. 
Some  hundreds  of  cases  of  frost-bite  having  oc- 
curred, however,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  mer- 
chants' showing  signs  of  a  tendency  to  make  up  for 
the  lack  of  outward  heat  by  the  administration  of 
inward  stimulants,  the  government  stepped  in  just 
as  the  consumption  of  alcohol  threatened  to  make 
spontaneous  combustion  imminent,  and  graciously 
allowed  stoves  in  the  Gostinnoi-dvor.  These  are 
only  tolerated  from  the  first  of  November  to  the  first 
of  the  ensuing  April,  and  are  constructed  on  one 
uniform  and  ingenious  pattern,  the  invention  of 
General  Amossoff.  Thus  remembering  all  these 
regulation  stoves,  that  no  wood  has  been  used  in  the 
construction  of  the  whole  immense  fabric — all  being 


182  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

stone,  brick,  and  iron,  the  very  doors  being  lined 
with  sheets  of  the  last-named  material;  and  recall- 
ing all  the  elaborate  and  severe  police  regulations 
for  guarding  the  Gostinnoi-dvor  against  the  devouring 
element,  I  should  take  it  quite  as  a  matter  of  course, 
were  I  to  hear  some  fine  morning  that  the  pride  of 
mercantile  Petersburg  had  been  burnt  to  the  ground. 
Man  has  a  way  of  proposing  and  Heaven  of  dispos- 
ing, which  slide  in  perfectly  different  grooves.  Iron 
curtains  for  isolation,  fireproof  basements,  and  reser- 
voirs on  roofs,  won't  always  save  buildings  from  de- 
struction, somehow;  and  though  nothing  can  be 
more  admirable  than  the  precautions  against  fire 
adopted  by  the  authorities,  the  merchants  of  the 
Gostinnoi-dvor  have  an  ugly  habit  of  cowering  in 
their  back  shops,  where  you  may  frequently  detect 
them  in  the  very  act  of  smoking  pipes  of  Toukoff 
tobacco,  up  the  sleeves  of  their  wolf-skin  touloupes, 
or  poking  charcoal  embers  into  the  eternal  samovar 
or  tea-urn.  I  have  too  much  respect  for  the  hagiol- 
ogy  of  the  orthodox  Greek  Church  to  attribute  any 
positive  danger  from  fire  to  the  thousand  and  one 
sacred  grease-pots  that  swing,  kindled  from  flimsy 
chains  in  every  hole  and  corner;  but,  I  know  that 
were  I  agent  for  the  Sun  Fire  Insurance,  I  would 
grant  no  policy,  or,  at  all  events,  pay  none,  for  a 
house  in  which  there  was  a  samovar.  Once  lighted, 
it  is  the  best  tea-urn  in  the  world ;  the  drawback  is, 
that  you  run  a  great  risk  of  burning  the  house  down 
before  you  can  warm  your  samovar  properly. 

The  shops  in  the  Gostinnoi-dvor  are  divided  into 
lines  or  rows,  as  are  the  booths  in  John  Bunyan's 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GHEAT   BAZAAR.          183 

Vanity  Fair.  There  is  Silkmercer's  Row ;  opposite 
to  which,  on  the  other  side  of  the  street,  are  Feath- 
er-bed Row  and  Watchmakers'  Row.  Along  the 
Nevskoi  side  extend  Cloth -merchants'  Row,  Haber- 
dashers' Row,  and  Portmanteau  Row,  intermingled 
with  which  are  sundry  stationers,  booksellers,  and 
hatters.  The  side  of  the  trapezoid  over  against  the 
Apraxine-dvor  (which  runs  parallel  to  the  Nevskoi) 
is  principally  occupied  by  coppersmiths  and  trunk- 
makers;  the  archways  are  devoted  to  the  stalls  of 
toy-merchants  and  dealers  in  holy  images :  while  all 
the  pillar-standings  are  occupied  by  petty  chapmen 
and  hucksters  of  articles  as  cheap  as  they  are  mis- 
cellaneous. It  is  this  in-door  and  out-door  selling 
that  gives  the  Gostinnoi'-dvor  such  a  quaint  resem- 
blance to  a  Willis's  Room  Fancy  Fair  set  up  in  the 
middle  of  White-chapel  High  Street.  One  side  of 
the  trapezoid  I  have  left  unmentioned,  and  that  is 
the  long  arcade  facing  the  Sadovvaia,  or  Great  Gar- 
den Street.  This  is  almost  exclusively  taken  up  by 
the  great  Boot  Row. 

Every  human  being  is  supposed  to  be  a  little  in- 
sane on  some  one  subject.  To  the  way  of  watches 
some  men's  madness  lies  ;  others  are  cracked  about 
religion,  government,  vegetarianism,,  perpetual  mo- 
tion, economical  chimney-sweeping,  lead-mines, 
squaring  the  circle,  or  the  one  primeval  language. 
Take  your  soberest,  most  business-like  friend,  and  run 
carefully  over  his  gamut,  and  you  shall  come  on  the 
note ;  sweep  the  lyre  and  you  shall  find  one  cracked 
chord.  I  knew  a  man  once — the  keenest  at  driving  a 
bargain  to  be  met  with  out  of  Mark  Lane — who  never 


184  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

went  mad  till  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  on 
one  topic  ;  and  then  he  was  as  mad  as  a  March  hare. 
We  think  that  we  have  such  an  excellent  coinage  ; 
but  how  many  a  bright-looking  shilling  is  only 
worth  elevenpence  halfpenny !  We  boast  of  our 
improved  beehives;  but  how  often  the  buzzing 
honey-makers  forsake  the  hive,  and  house  them- 
selves in  our  bonnets !  I  have  a  Boswell  (every 
writer  to  the  lowliest  has  his  Boswell)  who  professes 
to  have  read  my  printed  works ;  and  according  to 
him  I  am  mad  on  the  subject  of  boots.  He  declares 
that  my  pen  is  as  faithful  to  the  boot-tree  as  the 
needle  to  the  pole  ;  and  that,  even  as  the  late  Lord 
Byron  could  not  write  half-a-dozen  stanzas  without 
alluding,  in  some  shape  or  other,  to  his  own  lord- 
ship's personal  attractions  and  hopeless  misery,  so  I 
cannot  get  over  fifty  lines  of  printed  matter  without 
dragging  in  boots,  directly  or  indirectly,  as  a  topic 
for  description  or  disquisition.  It  may  be  so.  It  is 
certain  that  I  have  a  great  affection  for  boots,  and 
can  ride  a  boot-jack  as  I  would  a  hobby-horse. 
Often  have  I  speculated  philosophically  upon  old 
boots ;  oftener  have  I  ardently  desired  the  possession 
of  new  ones ;  and  of  the  little  man  wants  here  be- 
low, nor  wants  Jong,  I  cannot  call  to  mind  anything 
I  have  an  earnester  ambition  for  than  a  great  many 
pairs  of  new  boots — good  boots — nicely  blacked,  all 
of  a  row,  and  all  paid  for.  I  have  mentioned,  and 
admit  this  boot-weakness,  because  I  feel  my  soul 
expand,  and  my  ideas  grow  lucid  as  I  approach  the 
great  Sapagi-Linie,  or  Boot  Row  of  the  Gostinnoi- 
dvor. 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE   GREAT  BAZAAR.  185 

The  Russians  are  essentially  a  booted  people. 
The  commonalty  do  not  understand  shoes  at  all ; 
and  when  they  have  no  boots,  either  go  barefooted, 
or  else  thrust  their  extremities  into  atrocious  canoes 
of  plaited  birch-bark.  Next  to  a  handsome  kakosch- 
nik  or  tiara  headdress,  the  article  of  costume  most 
coveted  by  a  peasant-woman  is  a  pair  of  full-sized 
men's  boots.  One  of  the  prettiest  young  English 
ladies  I  ever  knew  used  to  wear  Wellington  boots, 
and  had  a  way  of  tapping  their  polished  sides  with 
her  parasol-handle  that  well-nigh  drove  me  dis- 
tracted ;  but  let  that  pass — a  booted  Russian  female 
is  quite  another  sort  of  personage.  In  the  streets 
of  Petersburg  the  "  sign  of  the  leg  "  or  a  huge  jack- 
boot with  a  tremendous  spur,  all  painted  the  bright- 
est scarlet,  is  to  be  found  on  legions  of  houses.  The 
common  soldiers  wear  mighty  boots,  as  our  native 
brigade,  after  Alma,  knew  full  well ;  and  if  you 
make  a  morning  call  on  a  Russian  gentleman,  you 
will  very  probably  find  him  giving  audience  to  his 
bootmaker. 

But  the  Boot  Row  of  the  Gostinnoi-dvor !  Shops 
follow  shops,  whose  loaded  shelves  display  seemingly 
interminable  rows  of  works  addressed  to  the  under- 
standing, and  bound  in  the  best  Russia  leather.  The 
air  is  thick  and  heavy — not  exactly  with  the  spicy 
perfumes  of  Araby  the  Blest — but  with  the  odour  of 
the  birch-bark,  used  in  the  preparation  of  the  leather. 
Only  here  can  you  understand  how  lamentably  ster- 
ile we  western  nations  are  in  the  invention  of  boots. 
Wellingtons,  top-boots,  Bluchers,  Oxonians,  high- 
lows,  and  patent  leather  Albert  slippers,— name 


186  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

these,  and  our  boot  catalogue  is  very  nearly  ex- 
hausted ;  for,  though  there  are  very  many  other  names 
for  boots,  and  cunning  tradesmen  have  even  done 
violence  to  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  joining 
them  in  unholy  alliance  to  produce  monstrous  appella- 
tions for  new  boots ;  the  articles  themselves  have 
been  but  dreary  repetitions  of  the  old  forms.  What 
is  the  Claviculodidas-tokolon,  but  an  attenuated 
Wellington  ?  what  is  even  the  well-known  and  estab- 
lished Clarence  but  a  genteel  high-low  ? 

But,  in  the  Sapagi-Linie  you  shall  find  boots  of  a 
strange  fashion,  and  peculiar  to  this  strange  people. 
There  are  the  tall  jack-boots,  worn  till  within  a  few 
months  since  by  the  Czar's  chevalier  guards.  They 
are  so  long,  so  stern,  so  rigid,  so  uncompromising  that 
the  big  boots  of  our  lifeguardsmen  would  look  mere 
stocking-hose  to  them.  They  are  rigid,  creaseless, 
these  boots :  the  eyes,  methinks,  of  James  the  Second 
would  have  glistened  with  pleasure  to  see  them; 
they  seem  the  very  boots  that  gracious  tyrant  would 
have  put  a  criminal's  legs  into,  and  driven  wedges 
between.  They  stand  up  bodily,  boldly  on  the 
shelves,  kicking  the  walls  behind  them  with  their 
long  gilt  spurs,  trampling  their  wooden  resting-place 
beneath  their  tall  heels,  pointing  their  toes  menac- 
ingly at  the  curious  stranger.  As  to  polish,  they 
are  varnished  rather  than  blacked,  to  such  a  degree 
of  brilliancy,  that  the  Great  Unknown  immortalized 
by  Mr.  Warren,  might  not  only  shave  himself  in 
them,  but  flick  the  minutest  speck  of  dust  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye,  by  the  aid  of  their  mirrored  surface. 
These  boots  are  so  tall,  and  strong,  and  hard,  that  I 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE  GREAT   BAZAAR.  187 

believe  them  to  be  musket-proof,  bomb-proof,  Jacobi- 
machine  proof,  as  they  say  the  forts  of  Cronstadt  are. 
If  it  should  ever  happen  that  the  chevalier  guards 
went  forth  to  battle,  (how  did  all  the  correspondents 
in  the  Crimea  make  the  mistake  of  imagining  that 
the  Russian  guards  as  guards  were  sent  to  Sebas- 
topol?)  and  that  some  of  those  stupendous  cava- 
liers were  laid  low  by  hostile  sabre  or  deadly  bullet, 
those  boots,  I  am  sure,  would  never  yield.  The 
troopers  might  fall,  but  the  boots  would  remain  erect 
on  the  ensanguined  field,  like  trees,  scathed  indeed, 
by  lightning,  and  encumbered  by  the  wreck  of 
branches  and  foliage,  but  standing  still,  firm-rooted 
and  defiant.  But  they  will  never  have  the  good 
luck  to  see  the  tented  field, — these  boots, — even  if 
there  be  a  new  war,  and  the  chevaliers  be  sent  to 
fight.  The  jack-boots  have  been  abolished  by  the 
Czar  Alexander,  and  trousers  with  stripes  down  the 
sides  substituted  for  them.  They  only  exist  now  in 
reality  on  the  shelves  of  the  Sapagi-Linie,  and  in  the 
imagination  of  the  artists  of  the  illustrated  news- 
papers. Those  leal  men  are  true  to  the  jack-boot 
tradition.  Each  artist  writes  from  Moscow  home  to 
his  particular  journal  to  assure  his  editor  that  his 
drawings  are  the  only  correct  ones,  and  that  he  is  the 
only  correspondent  to  be  depended  upon  ;  and  each 
depicts  costumes  that  never  existed,  or  have  fallen 
into  desuetude  long  since.  Wondrous  publications 
are  illustrated  newspapers  ;  I  saw  the  other  day,  in 
a  Great  Pictorial  Journal,  some  charming  little  views 
of  St.  Petersburg  in  eighteen  hundred  and  fifty  six, 
and  lo !  they  are  exact  copies  of  some  little  views  I 


188  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

have  of  St.  Petersburg  in  eighteen  hundred  and  thir- 
ty-seven. There  is  one  of  a  bridge  from  St.  Izaack's 
church  to  Wassily-Ostrow,  that  has  been  removed 
these  ten  years  ;  but  this  is  an  age  of  go-aheadism, 
and  it  is  not  for  me  to  complain.  The  jack-boots  of 
the  chevalier  guards,  however,  I  will  no  more  admit 
than  I  will  their  presence  in  the  Crimea :  for  wert 
thou  not  my  friend  and  beloved,  Arcadi-Andrievitch? 
count,  possessor  of  serfs,  honorary  counsellor  of  the 
college,  and  cornet  in  the  famous  chevalier  guards  of 
the  empress?  Four  languages  didst  thou  speak, 
Arcadi-Andrievitch,  baritone  was  thy  voice,  and  of 
the  school  of  Tamburini  thy  vocalization.  Not  much 
afraid  of  Leopold  de  Meyer,  need'st  thou  have  been 
on  the  piano-forte ;  expert  decorator  wert  thou  of 
ladies'  albums ;  admirable  worker  of  slippers  in  gold 
and  silver  thread ;  cunning  handicraftsman  in  wax 
flowers,  and  dauntless  breaker-in  of  untamed  horses. 
In  England,  Arcadi-Andrievitch,  thou  wouldst  have 
been  a  smock-faced  schoolboy.  In  precocious  Russia 
thou  wert  honorary  counsellor,  and  had  a  college 
diploma,  a  droschki  (haras),  stud  of  brood  mares, 
and  a  cornetcy  in  the  Guards.  There  are  hair-dress- 
ers in  Russia  who  will  force  mustachios  on  little 
boy's  lips  (noble  little  boys),  and  they  have  them  like 
early  peas  or  hothouse  pines ;  for  everything  is  to  be 
had  for  silver  roubles,  even  virility.  Arcadi-Andrie- 
vitch and  I  were  great  friends.  He  had  been  for 
some  months  expectant  of  his  cornetcy,  and  long- 
ing to  change  his  Lyceum  cocked-hat,  blue  frock, 
and  toasting-fork-like  small  sword,  for  the  gorgeous 
equipments  of  a  guardsman.  He  was  becoming 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE   GREAT  BAZAAR.          189 

melancholy  at  the  delay  in  receiving  his  commission ; 
now,  fancying  that  the  Czar's  aides-de-camp  had 
sequestered  his  petition ;  now,  that  his  Majesty  him- 
self had  a  spite  against  him,  and  was  saying,  "  No ! 
Arcadi- Andrievitch,  you  shall  not  have  your  cornetcy 
yet  awhile  ;  "  now  grumbling  at  the  continual  doses 
of  paper  roubles  he  was  compelled  to  administer  to 
the  scribes  at  the  War-office  and  the  Etat  Major. 
The  Russians  (the  well-born  ones)  are  such  liars  that 
I  had  begun  to  make  small  bets  with  myself  that 
Arcadi- Andrievitch  had  been  destined  by  his  papa 
for  the  career  of  a  Tchinovnik,  or  government  clerk, 
and  not  for  a  guardsman  at  all ;  when  the  youth 
burst  into  my  room  one  day,  in  a  state  of  excitement 
so  violent  as  to  lead  him  to  commit  two  grammatical 
errors  in  the  course  of  half-an-hour's  French  conver- 
sation, and  informed  me,  that  at  last  he  had  received 
his  commission.  I  saw  it ;  the  Imperial  Prikaz  or 
edict,  furnished  with  a  double  eagle  big  enough  to 
fly  away  with  a  baby.  Arcadi- Andrievitch  was  a 
cornet.  I  am  enabled  to  mention  my  Russian  friends 
by  name  without  incurring  the  slightest  risk  of  com- 
promising them,  or  betraying  private  friendship  ;  for 
in  Russia  you  do  not  call  a  friend  BrownofF  or 
Smithoffsky,  but  you  address  him  by  his  Christian 
name,  adding  to  it  the  Christian  name  of  his  father. 
Thus,  Arcadi- Andrievitch,  Arcadius  the  son  of  An- 
drew. You  employ  the  same  locution  with  a  lady : 
always  taking  care  to  use  her  father's  baptismal 
name.  Thus,  Alexandra-Fedrovna,  Alexandra  the 
daughter  of  Theodore. 

To  return  to  my  Arcadi- Andrievitch.     Though  he 


190  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

was  but  a  little  boy,  he  possessed,  as  I  have  re- 
marked, a  droschky;  and  in  this  vehicle,  a  very 
handsome  one,  with  a  fast  trotter  in  the  shafts,  and 
a  clever  mare,  dressee  a  la  vollee,  by  the  side,  and 
driven  by  a  flowing  bearded  moujik,  his  property, 
(who  was  like  the  prophet  Jeremiah,)  he  took  me 
home  to  see  his  uniforms.  The  young  rogue  had 
had  them  all  ready  for  the  last  six  weeks,  and  many 
a  time,  I'll  be  bound,  he  had  tried  them  on  and  ad- 
mired his  little  figure  in  the  glass,  late  at  night  or 
early  in  the  morning.  Although  this  lad  had  a 
dimpled  chin  that  never  had  felt  the  barber's  shear? 
he  had  a  very  big  house  all  to  himself,  on  the  Dvort- 
sovaia  Naberejenaia,  or  Palace  Quay :  a  mansion 
perhaps  as  large  as  Lord  John  Russell's  in  Chesham 
Place,  and  a  great  deal  handsomer.  It  was  his 
house  :  his  Dom ;  the  land  was  his,  and  the  horses  in 
the  stable  were  his,  and  the  servants  in  the  ante- 
chamber were  his,  to  have  and  to  hold  under  Heaven 
and  the  Czar.  I  forget  how  many  thousand  roubles, 
spending  money,  he  had  a  year,  this  beardless  young 
fellow.  I  saw  his  uniforms ;  the  tunic  of  white  cloth 
and  silver ;  the  cuirass  of  gold ;  the  brilliant  casque 
surmounted  by  a  flowing  white  plume ;  the  massive 
epaulettes,  the  long  silver  sash,  together  with  a  vast 
supplementary  wardrobe  of  undress  frocks  and  over- 
alls, and  the  inevitable  gray  capote.  "  But  where,"  I 
asked, "  are  the  jack-boots  I  have  so  often  admired  in 
the  Sapagi-Linie,  and  the  military  costume  prints  in 
Daziaro's  window?  "  He  sighed,  and  shook  his  head 
mournfully.  The  "  Gossudar  "  (the  lord)  "  has  abol- 
ished the  boots,"  he  answered.  "  I  used  to  dream  of 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE  GREAT  BAZAAR.          191 

them.  I  had  ordered  four  pairs — not  in  the  Gostinnoi- 
dvor ;  for  the  bootmakers  there  are  soukinsinoi  (sons 
of  female  dogs) — but  of  my  own  sabakoutchelovek, 
— of  a  booter  who  is  a  German  hound,  and  lives  in 
the  Resurrection  Perspective.  He  brought  them 
home  on  the  very  day  that  the  boots  were  sup- 
pressed. He  had  the  impudence  to  say  that  he  could 
not  foresee  the  intentions  of  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment, and  to  request  me  to  pay  for  them ;  upon 
which,  I  believe,  Mitophan,  my  body  servant,  broke 
two  of  his  teeth — accidentally,  of  course,  in  pushing 
him  down  stairs.  He  is  an  excellent  bootmaker,  and 
one  whom  I  can  conscientiously  recommend  to  you, 
and  has  long  since,  I  have  no  doubt,  put  on  more 
than  the  price  of  my  jack-boots  and  his  broken  teeth 
to  my  subsequent  bills. — Mais,  que  voulez-vous? — 
Thus  far  Arcadi-Andrievitch  ;  and  this  is  how  I  came 
to  know  that  the  Chevalier  Guards  no  longer  wore 
jack-boots. 

I  wonder  why  they  were  swept  away.  Sometimes 
I  fancy  it  was  because  their  prestige,  as  boots,  dis- 
appeared with  the  Czar  Nicholas.  Like  that  mon- 
arch, they  were  tall,  stern,  rigid,  uncompromising ; 
the  cloth  overalls  were  more  suited  to  the  conciliat- 
ing rule  of  Alexander  the  Second.  Nicholas,  like 
Bombastes,  hung  his  terrible  boots  to  the  branch  of 
a  tree,  and  defied  those  who  dared  displace  them  to 
meet  him  face  to  face.  They  were  displaced,  and  he 
was  met  face  to  face,  and  the  Czar  Bombastes  died 
in  a  rage,  like  a  poisoned  rat  in  a  hole,  in  a  certain 
vaulted  chamber  in  the  Winter  Palace.  I  have  seen 
the  tears  trickle  down  the  cheeks  of  the  Ischvostchiks 


192  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

passing  the  window  of  this  chamber,  when  they  have 
pointed  upward,  and  told  me  that  Uncle  Nicola'i 
died  there ;  and  Nicholas  indeed  had  millions  to 
weep  for  him, — all  save  his  kindred,  and  his  courtiers, 
and  those  who  had  felt  his  wicked  iron  hand.  There 
is  a  hot  wind  about  the  deathbeds  of  such  sovereigns 
that  dries  up  the  eyes  of  those  who  dwell  within 
palaces. 

Far,  far  away  have  the  jack-boots  of  the  Em- 
press's Guards  led  me  from  the  Sapagi-Linie  of  the 
Gostinnoi-dvor,  to  which  I  must,  for  very  shame, 
return.  More  boots,  though.  Here  are  the  hessians 
worn  by  the  dashing  hussars  of  Grodno, — hessians 
quite  of  the  Romeo  Coates  cut.  Now,  the  jack-boot 
is  straight  and  rigid  in  its  lustrous  leather  all  the 
way  down,  from  mid-thigh  to  ankle ;  whereas  to 
your  smart  hussar,'there  is  allowed  the  latitude  of 
some  dozen  creases  or  wrinkles  in  the  boot  about 
three  inches  above  the  instep,  and  made  with  studied 
carelessness.  Then  the  body  of  the  boot  goes  straight 
swelling  up  the  calf.  I  doubt  not  but  a  wrinkle  the 
more  or  the  less  on  parade  would  bring  a  hussar  of 
Grodno  to  grief.  These  hessians  are  bound  round 
the  tops  with  broad  gold  lace,  and  are  completed  by 
rich  bullion  tassels. 

Surely  it  was  a  spindle-shanked  generation  that 
gave  over  wearing  hessians  ;  and  a  chuckle-headed 
generation  that  imbecilely  persist  in  covering  the 
handsomest  part  of  the  boot  with  hideous  trousers. 
To  have  done  with  the  Gostinnoi-dvor,  you  have 
here  the  slight,  shapely  boots  of  the  militia  officer, — 
light  and  yielding,  and  somewhat  resembling  the 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE   GREAT  BAZAAR.          193 

top-boots  of  an  English  jockey,  but  with  the  tops  of 
scarlet  leather  in  lieu  of  our  sporting  ochre ;  there 
are  the  boots  worn  by  the  Lesquians  of  the  Imperial 
Escort,  curious  boots,  shelving  down  at  the  tops  like 
vertical  coal-scuttles,  and  with  quaint,  concave  soles, 
made  to  fit  the  coalscoop-like  stirrups  of  those  very 
wild  horsemen ;  and,  finally,  there  are  the  barbari- 
cally  gorgeous  boots — or  rather,  boot-hose — of  the 
Circassians  of  the  Guard, — long  lustrous  half-trews, 
of  a  sort  of  chain-mail  of  leather,  the  tops  and  feet 
of  embroidered  scarlet  leather,  with  garters  and  an- 
klets of  silver  fringe  and  beads,  and  with  long,  down- 
ward curved  spurs  of  silver,  chased  and  embossed. 

The  theme  shall  still  be  boots,  for  the  Sapagi- 
Linie  overflows  with  characteristic  boots.  Are  not 
boots  the  most  distinctive  parts  and  parcels  of  the 
Russian  costume  ?  and  am  I  not  come  from  Wel- 
lington Street,  Strand,  London,  to  the  Gostinnoi- 
dvor  expressly  to  chronicle  such  matters  ?  Am  I 
not  in  possession  of  this,  a  Russian  establishment, 
and  is  it  not  my  task,  like  an  honest  broker's  man, 
to  take  a  faithful  inventory  of  the  sticks  ?  Here  are 
the  long  boots  of  Tamboff,  reaching  high  up  the 
thigh,  and  all  of  scarlet  leather.  These  boots  have 
a  peculiar,  and,  to  me,  delightful  odour,  more  of 
myrrh,  frankincense,  sandal- wood,  benzoin,  and  other 
odoriferents,  than  of  the  ordinary  birch-bark  tanned 
leather.  They  will  serve  a  double  purpose.  They 
are  impervious  to  wet ;  and  (if  you  don't  mind  hav- 
ing red  legs,  like  a  halberdier  or  a  turkey-cock)  are 
excellent  things  to  splash  through  the  mud  in ;  for 
mud  only  stains  them  in  a  picturesque  and  having- 
9 


194  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

seen-service  sort  of  way ;  and  if  you  hang  them  to 
dry  in  your  chamber  when  you  return,  they  will  per- 
vade the  whole  suite  of  apartments  with  a  balmy, 
breezy  scent  of  new  dressing-case  and  pocket-book, 
combined  with  pot-pourri  in  a  jar  of  vieux  Sevres, 
pastilles  of  Damascus,  Stamboul  tchibouk-sticks,  and 
pink  billet-doux  from  a  countess.  If  you  like  those 
odours  gently  blended  one  with  the  other,  you  would 
revel  in  Tamboff  boots.  But  perhaps  you  like  the 
odour  of  roast  meat  better,  and  cannot  abide  the 
smell  of  any  leather.  There  are  as  many  men  as 
many  tastes  as  minds  to  them,  we  know.  There  are 
some  that  cannot  abide  a  gaping  pig;  and  I  have 
heard  of  people  who  swooned  at  the  sight  of  Shap- 
sygar  cheese,  and  became  hysterical  at  the  smell  of 
garlic. 

Who  has  not  heard  of  the  world-famous  Kasan 
boots  ?  ,  Well ;  perhaps  not  quite  world-famous — 
there  are,  to  be  sure,  a  good  many  things  Russian, 
and  deservedly  celebrated  there,  which  are  quite 
unknown  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Empire.  At  all 
events,  the  boots  of  Kasan  deserve  to  be  famous  all 
over  the  world  ;  and  I  will  do  my  best — though  that 
may  be  but  little — to  make  them  known  to  civilized 
Europe.  The  Kasan  boot  supplies  the  long-sought- 
after  and  sighed-for  desideratum  of  a  slipper  that 
will  keep  on — of  a  boot  that  the  wearer  may  lounge 
and  kick  his  legs  about  in,  unmindful  of  the  state 
of  his  stocking-heels  (I  do  not  allude  to  holes,  though 
they  will  happen  in  the  best  regulated  bachelor  fam- 
ilies, but  to  darns,  which,  though  tidier,  are  equally 
distasteful  to  the  sight,)  or  a  boot-slipper,  or  slipper- 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GREAT   BAZAAR.  195 

boot,  which  can  be  pulled  off  and  on  with  far  greater 
ease  than  a  glove ;  which  cannot  be  trodden  down 
at  heel,  and  which  will  last  through  all  sorts  of  usage 
a  most  delightfully  unreasonable  time.  The  Kasan 
boot  is  innately  Tartar,  and  the  famous  Balsagi  of 
the  Turkish  women — loose,  hideous,  but  comfortable 
boots  of  yellow  leather  which  they  pull  over  their 
papouches  when  they  go  a  bathing  or  a  bazaaring — 
are  evidently  borrowed  from  the  Kasan  prototype. 
This,  to  be  descriptive  after  having  been  (not  unduly) 
eulogistic,  is  a  short  boot  of  the  high-low  pattern, 
usually  of  dark  crimson  leather  (other  colours  can 
be  had,  but  red  is  the  favourite  with  the  Russians.) 
There  is  a  cushion-like  heel,  admirably  yielding  and 
elastic,  and  a  sole  apparently  composed  of  tanned 
brown  paper,  so  slight  and  soft  is  it,  but  which  is 
quite  tough  enough  and  landworthy  enough  for  any 
lounging  purpose.  It  is  lined  with  blue  silk,  whose 
only,  disadvantage  is,  that  if  you  wear  the  Kasan 
boot,  as  most  noble  Russians  do,  (without  stockings) 
the  dye  of  the  silk  being  rather  imperfectly  fixed, 
comes  off  on  your  flesh,  and  gives  you  the  appear- 
ance of  an  ancient  indigo-stained  Briton.  The  shin 
and  instep  of  the  Kasan  boot  are  made  rich  and 
'rare  by  the  most  cunning  and  fantastic  workmanship 
in  silver-thread  and  beadwork,  and  mosaic  and  mar- 
queterie,  or  buhl-work,  or  inlaying — call  it  what  you 
will — of  different-coloured  leathers.  There  is  a  tinge 
of  the  Indian  mocassin  about  it,  a  savour  of  the  car- 
pets of  Ispahan,  a  touch  of  the  dome  of  St.  Mark's, 
Venice ;  but  a  pervading  and  preponderating  flavour 
of  this  wild-beast-with-his-hide-painted-and-his-claws- 


196  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

gilt  country.  It  isn't  Turkish,  it  isn't  Byzantine,  it 
isn't  Venetian,  it  isn't  Moyenage  Bohemian.  Why 
or  how  should  it  be,  indeed,  seeing  that  it  is  a  boot 
from  Kasan  in  Russia?  Yet  it  has,  like  the  mon- 
strous Gostinnoi-dvor,  its  most  certain  dim  charac- 
teristics of  all  the  first  four  mentioned  nationalities, 
which  all  succumb,  though,  in  the  long  run,  to  the 
pure  barbaric  Muscovite  element,  unchanged  and 
unchangeable  (for  all  thy  violent  veneering,  Peter 
Velike)  from  the  days  of  Rurik  and  Boris-Goudonof, 
and  the  false  Demitrius.  Every  rose  has  a  thorn — 
every  advantage  its  drawback  ;  and  the  quaint,  cosy, 
luxuriant  boot  of  Kasan  has  one,  in  the  shape  of  a 
very  powerful  and  remarkably  unpleasant  odour,  of 
which  fried  candle-grease  and  a  wet  day  in  Ber- 
mondsey  would  appear  to  be  the  chief  components. 
Whether  the  men  of  Kasan  have  some  secret  or 
subtle  grease  wherewith  to  render  the  leather  supple, 
and  that  the  disagreeable  odour  is  so  inherent  to  and 
inseparable  from  it  as  the  nasty  taste  from  tha.t 
precious  among  medicaments,  castor-oil;  or  whether 
the  Kasan  boot  smell  is  simply  one  of  the  nine  hun- 
dred and  twelve  distinct  Russian  stenches,  of  whose 
naturalization  in  all  the  Russias,  Euler,  Malte-Brun, 
and  other  savans,  scientific  and  geographical,  have 
been  unaccountably  silent,  is  uncertain ;  but  so  it  is. 
We  must  accept  the  Kasan  boot  as  it  is,  and  not 
repine  at  its  powerful  odour.  Camphor  will  do 
much ;  philosophy  more ;  acclimatization  to  Russian 
smells,  most  of  all. 

There  is  certainly  no  invention  for  morning  loung- 
ing that  can  equal  this  delightful  boot.     Our  com- 


GOSTINNOI-DVOK.      THE   GREAT   BAZAAR.          197 

mon  "Western  slipper  is  an  inelegant,  slipshod, 
dangling,  prone-to-bursting-at-the-side  imposition 
(that  I  had  any  chance  of  obtaining  those  beauteous 
silk-and-bead  slippers  thou  hast  been  embroidering 
for  the  last  two  years,  Oh,  Juliana !)  There  is  cer- 
tainly something  to  be  said  in  favour  of  the  highly- 
arched  Turkish  papouche.  It  is  very  easy  to  take 
off ;  but  then  it  is  very  difficult  to  keep  on  ;  though, 
for  the  purpose  of  correcting  an  impertinent  domestic 
on  the  mouth,  its  sharp  wooden  heel  is  perhaps  un- 
rivalled. There  are  several  men  I  should  like  to 
kick,  too,  with  a  papouche — its  turned-up  toe  is  at 
once  contemptuous  and  pain-inflicting.  I  have 
heard  it  said  that  the  very  best  slippers  in  the  world 
are  an  old  pair  of  boots,  ventilated  with  corn-valves 
made  with  a  razor ;  but  the  sage  who  gave  utter- 
ance to  that  opinion,  sensible  as  it  is,  would  change 
his  mind  if  I  had  bethought  myself  of  bringing  him 
home  a  pair  of  Kasan  boots.  I  have  but  one  pair, 
of  which,  at  the  risk  of  being  thought  selfish,  I  do 
not  mean,  under  any  circumstances,  to  deprive  my- 
self. I  have  but  to  thrust  my  foot  out  of  bed  in  the 
morning,  for  the  Kasan  boot  to  come,  as  it  were  of 
its  own  volition,  and  nestle  to  my  foot  till  it  has 
coiled  itself  round  it,  rather  than  shod  me.  I  may 
toast  the  soles  of  this  boot  of  boots  against  the  walls 
of  my  stove,  (my  feet  being  within  them,)  without 
the  slightest  danger  of  scorching  my  flesh  or  in- 
juring the  leather.  I  might  strop  a  razor  on  my 
Kasan  boot ;  in  short,  I  might  do  as  many  things 
with  it  as  with  the  dear  old  Leather  Bottelle  in 
the  song ;  and  when  it  is  past  its  legitimate  work 


198  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

it  will  serve  to  keep  nails  in,  or  tobacco,  or  such 
small  wares. 

The  morning  equipment  of  a  Russian  seigneur  is 
never  complete  without  Kasan  boots.  When  you 
pay  an  early  visit  to  one  of  these,  you  will  find  his 
distinguished  Origin  reclining  on  an  ottoman,  a  very 
long  Turkish  chibouk,  filled  with  the  astute  M.  For- 
tuna's  krepky  tabaky  between  his  lips,  his  aristo- 
cratic form  enveloped  either  in  a  long  Caucasian 
caftan  of  the  finest  sheepskin,  or  in  a  flowered 
Persian  dressing-gown,  a  voluminous  pair  of  charo- 
vars,  or  loose  trousers  of  black  velvet  bound  round 
his  hips  with  a  shawl  of  crape  and  gold  tissue,  while 
a  pair  of  genuine  Kasan  boots  (to  follow  out  the 
approved  three-volume  novel  formula)  complete  his 
costume.  Stay — his  Origin's  head  will  be  swathed 
in  a  silk  pocket-handkerchief,  which  sometimes  from 
its  pattern,  and  sometimes  from  its  uncleanliness,  is 
not  quite  so  picturesque.  On  a  gueridon,  or  side- 
table,'  there  will  be  a  green  velvet  porte-cigare,  a  box 
of  sweetmeats,  a  bottle  of  Bordeaux,  a  syphon  of 
Selzer  water,  and  a  half-emptied  tumbler  of  tea, 
looking  very  muddy  and  sticky  in  its  glass  prism. 
There  will  be  a  lap-dog  in  the  room  who  has  been 
taught  to  understand  French,  thougli  a  Cossack  cur 
by  four  descents,  and  who,  at  the  word  of  command, 
in  that  language,  goes  through  the  military  exercise. 
There  will  be  the  lap-dog,  Mouche,  or  Brio's,  plate 
of  macaroons  and  milk  in  the  corner.  There  will  be, 
very  probably,  a  parrot,  perhaps  a  monkey;  but  in 
default  of  these,  certainly  a  musical  box,  or  a  guitar. 
Scattered  round  his  Origin's  feet,  and  on  his  otto- 


GOSTINNOI-DVOR.      THE    GREAT   BAZAAR.  199 

man,  will  be  his  Origin's  morning  light  literature : 
Paul  de  Kock,  Charles  de  Bernard,  or  Xavier  de 
Montepin,  their  amusing  and  instructive  works : 
[Gentlemen  of  the  old  school  read  Pigault,  Lebrun, 
and  Ducray-Duminil,]  you  never  see  any  newspapers. 
His  Origin  does  not  care  about  boring  himself  with 
the  Journal  de  St.  Pe'tersbourg,  or  the  Gazette  de 
1' Academic  ;  and  as  for  the  Times,  Punch,  the 
Charivari,  they  are  not  to  be  had,  even  for  Nous 
Autres  in  Russia.  You  seldom  see  any  Russian 
book,  unless  his  excellency  deigns  to  be  a  savant. 
What  is  the  good  of  studying  the  literature  of  a 
language  which  Nous  Autres  never  speak?  There 
is  a  piano  in  a  corner,  with  a  good  deal  of  tobacco- 
ash  on  the  keys.  There  are  some  portraits  of  opera 
girls  on  the  walls,  and  some  more  Paris  Boulevard 
lithographs  too  silly  to  be  vicious,  though  meant  to 
be  so.  If  my  reader  wants  to  see  portraits  of  Our 
Lady,  or  of  the  Czar,  he  or  she  must  go  to  Gavrilo- 
Ermova'ievitch,  the  merchant's  house,  or  Sophron- 
Pavlytch,  the  moujik's  cabin — not  to  the  mansions 
of  Nous  Autres.  There  is  about  the  chamber,  either 
in  costume,  or  accoutrement,  some  slight  but  unmis- 
takable sign  of-  its  owner  not  always  wearing  the 
'  Persian  dressing-gown,  the  charovars,  and  the  Kasan 
boots,  but  being  compelled  to  wear  a  sword,  a  hel- 
met, a  gray  greatcoat,  and  a  stand-up  collar;  and 
there  is,  besides  the  parrot,  the  monkey,  and  the  lap- 
dog,  another  living  thing  in  some  corner  or  other — 
in  the  shape  of  one  of  his  Origin's  serfs,  who  is  pot- 
tering about  making  cigarettes,  or  puffing  at  a  sam- 
ovar, or  polishing  a  watch-case,  silently  and  slavishly 
as  is  his  duty. 


200  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

IX. 

MERCHANTS    AND    MONEY-CHANGERS. 

I  HAVE  heard  boots  spoken  of  (not  in  very  polite 
society)  by  the  name  of  Steppers.  I  am  in  a  po- 
sition, now,  to  trace  the  etymology  of  the  expression. 
Steppers  are  derived,  evidently,  from  the  enormous 
Steppe  boots  which  the  merchants  in  the  Sapagi- 
Linie  have  to  sell.  Do  you  know  what  mudlarks' 
boots  are  ?  I  mean  such  as  are  worn  by  the  sewer- 
rummagers  of  Paris,  which  boots  cost  a  hundred 
francs  a  pah-,  and  of  which  only  three  pairs  are 
allowed  by  the  municipality  per  escouade,  or  squad 
of  mudlarks.  Of  such  are  the  Steppe  boots  ;  only 
bigger,  only  thicker,  only  properer  for  carrying  stores 
and  sundries,  besides  legs,  like  Sir  Hudibras's  trunk- 
hose.  I  don't  know  if  hippopotamus's  hide  be  cheap 
in  Russia,  or  rhinoceros's  skin  a  drug  in  the  market ; 
but  of  one  or  other  of  this  class  of  integuments  the 
Steppe  boots  seem  to  be  made.  When  they  become 
old,  the  leather  forms  itself  into  horny  scales  and 
bony  ridges ;  the  thread  they  are  sown  with  may 
turn  into  wire ;  the  soles  become  impregnated  with 
flinty  particles,  and  calcined  atoms  of  loamy  soil, 
and  so  concrete,  and  more  durable  ;  but,  as  for  wear- 
ing away  on  the  outside,  you  never  catch  the  Steppe 
boots  doing  that.  They  are  not  altogether  exempt 
from  decay,  either,  these  Blunderborean  boots  ;  and, 
like  Dead  Sea  apples,  are  frequently  rotten  within, 


MERCHANTS   AND   MONEY-CHANGERS.  201 

while  their ' exterior  is  stout  and  fair  to  look  upon; 
for  they  are  lined  throughout  (and  an  admirably 
warm  and  comfortable  lining  it  makes)  with  sheep- 
skin, dressed  to  a  silky  state  of  softness,  and  curried 
into  little  spherical  tufts,  like  the  wool  on  a  blacka- 
moor's head  with  whom  the  great  difficulty  of  ages 
has  been  overcome,  and  who  has  been  washed  white. 
For  ornament's  sake,  the  sheepskin  is  superseded 
round  the  tops  by  bands  of  rabbit  or  miniver  skin  ; 
and  there  is  a  complicated  apparatus  of  straps, 
buckles,  and  strings,  to  keep  the  boots  at*  due  mid- 
thigh  height.  But  there  is  a  profligate  insect  called 
the  moth,- — a  gay,  fluttering,  volatile,  reckless  scape- 
grace, always  burning  candles  at  both  ends,  and 
burning  his  own  silly  fingers  in  the  long  run,  who 
has  an  irrepressible  penchant  for  obtaining  board 
and  lodging  gratis  in  the  woolly  recesses  of  the 
sheepskin  lining.  Here  he  lives  with  several  other 
prodigals,  his  relatives,  in  the  most  riotous  and 
wasteful  fashion — living  on  the  fat,  or  rather,  the 
wool  of  the  land,  and  most  ungratefully  devouring 
the  very  roof  jthat  covers  him.  He  sneezes  at  cam- 
phor, and  defies  dusting ;  and  he  and  his  crew  would 
very  speedily  devour  every  atom  of  your  boot-linings, 
but  for  the  agency  of  a  very  powerful  and,  to  moth, 
deadly  substance,  called  mahorka.  Mahorka  is  the 
very  strongest,  coarsest,  essential-oiliest  tobacco  im- 
aginable. It  smells — ye  gods,  how  it  smells !  It 
smokes  as  though  it  were  made  of  the  ashes  of  the 
bottomless  pit,  mingled  with  the  leaves  of  the  upas- 
tree,  seasoned  with  assafaetida  and  cocculus  indicus. 
It  is,  altogether,  aboufc  the  sort  of  tobacco  against 


202  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

which  James  the  First  might  have  written1  his  Coun- 
terblast, and  a  pipe  of  which  he  might  have  offered 
the  devil,  as  a  digester  to  his  proposed  repast  of  a 
pig,  and  a  poll  of  ling,  with  mustard.  This  mahorka 
(the  only  tobacco  the  common  people  care  about 
smoking)  is,  by  Pavel  or  Dmitrych,  your  servants, 
rubbed  periodically  into  the  lining  of  your  boots, 
(and  into  your  schooba,  too,  and  whatever  other 
articles  of  furriery  you  may  happen  to  possess,) 
causing  the  silly  moth  to  fly  away — if,  indeed,  it 
leave  him  any  wings  to  fly,  or  body  to  fly  away 
with.  It  kills  all  insects,  and  it  nearly  kills  you, 
if  you  incautiously  approach  too  closely  to  a  newly- 
mahorka'd  boot.  Pavel  and  Dmitrych,  too,  are  pro- 
vokingly  addicted  to  dropping  the  abominable  stuff 
about,  and  rubbing  it  into  dress-coats  and  moire- 
antique  waistcoats,  not  only  irrevocably  spoiling 
those  garments,  but  producing  the  same  sternuta- 
tory effects  on  your  olfactory  nerves,  as  though 
somebody  had  been  burning  a  warming-pan  full  of 
cayenne  pepper  in  your  apartment.  All  things 
admitted,  however,  mahorka  is  a  sovereign  specific 
against  moths. 

Every  social  observance  in  Russia  is  tranche — 
peculiar  to  one  of  the  two  great  classes  :  it  is  a 
noble's  custom,  or  a  moujik's  custom,  but  is  never 
common  to  both.  Russian  gentlemen,  within  doors, 
are  incessant  smokers  ;  the  common  people  use  very 
little  tobacco.  You  never  see  a  moujik  smoking  a 
cigar,  and  very  rarely  even  enjoying  his  pipe.  In 
some  of  the  low  vodki  shops  I -have  seen  a  group 
of  moujiks  with  one  blackened  pipe  among  them, 


MERCHANTS   AND   MONEY-CHANGERS.  203 

with  a  shattered  bowl  and  scarcely  any  stem, 
charged  with  this  same  mahorka.  The  pipe  was 
passed  from  hand  to  hand,  each  smoker  taking  a 
solemn  whiff,  and  giving  a  placid  grunt,  exactly  as 
you  may  see  a  party  of  Irish  bogtrotters  doing  in 
a  Connemara  shebeen.  Down  south  in  Russia — 
I  mean  in  the  governments  of  Koursk  and  Woron- 
esch — there  is  a  more  Oriental  fashion  of  smoking 
in  vogue.  Some  mahorka,  with  more  or  less  dirt, 
is  put  into  a  pipkin,  in  whose  sides  a  few  odd  holes 
have  been  knocked ;  and  the  smokers  crouch  over  it 
with  hollow  sticks,  reeds,  or  tin  tubes,  each  man  to 
a  hole,  and  puff  away  at  the  common  bowl.  It  is 
not  that  the  Russian  peasant  does  not  care  for  his 
pipe ;  but  he  has  an  uneasy  consciousness  that  the 
luxurious  narcotic  is  not  .for  the  likes  of  him.  For 
him  to  fill  the  pipe  of  his  lord  and  master,  and  roll 
the  paper  cigarettes  ;  that  should  surely  be  sufficient. 
Havn't  our  British  matrons  somewhat  similar  feel- 
ings concerning  their  housemaids'  ringlets  ? 

This  powerful  mahorka  is  powerless  against  the 
Russian  bug.  That  hateful  brown-uniformed  mon- 
ster, who  is  voracious,  blood-sucking,  impudent,  and 
„  evil-smeUing  enough  to  be  a  Russian  functionary, 
and  to  have  a  grade  in  the  Tchinn,  laughs  a  horse- 
leech laugh  at  mahorka.  He  would  smoke  a  pipe 
thereof  without  winking,  I  am  convinced.  I  knew 
a  lady  in  St.  Petersburg  whose  sleeping  apartment 
(hung  with  sky-blue  silk,  fluted,  and  forming  one  of 
a  suite  rented  at  two  hundred  roubles  a  month)  was 
so  infested  with  arch  bugs,  that  she  would  have 
gone  into  a  high  fever  for  want  of  rest,  if  febrile 


204  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

symptoms  had  not  been  counteracted  by  faintness 
with  loss  of  blood.  She  was  a  buxom  woman  orig- 
inally, and  grew  paler  and  paler  every  day.  She 
tried  camphor ;  she  tried  vinegar ;  she  tried  turpen- 
tine ;  she  tried  a  celebrated  vermin  annihilator  pow- 
der, which  had  been  given  to  her  by  my  friend 
Nessim  Bey,  (otherwise  Colonel  Washington  La- 
fayette Bowie,  U.  S.,)  and  which  had  been  used 
with  great  success  by  that  gallant  condottiere  while 
campaigning  against  the  bugs — and  the  Russians — 
with  Omer  Pasha  in  Anatolia.  But  all  was  in  vain. 
The  brown  vampires  rioted  on  that  fair  flesh,  and 
brought  all  their  brothers,  like  American  sight-seers. 
The.  lady  was  in  despair,  and  applied,  at  last,  to  a 
venerable  Russian  friend,  decorated  with  the  cross 
of  St.  Stanislas,  second  class,  high  up  in  the  minis- 
try of  imperial  appanages,  and  who  had  resided  for 
more  than  half  a  century  in  St.  Petersburg. 

"  How  can  you  kill  bugs,  general  ?  "  (of  course  he 
was  a  general)  she  asked. 

"  Madame,"  he  answered,  «  I  think  it  might  be 
done  with  dogs  and  a  double-barrelled  gun ! " 

This,  though  hyperbolical,  is  really  the  dernier  mot 
of  the  vermin,  philosophy.  If  you  want  to  destroy 
bugs,  you  must  either  go  to  bed  in  plate-armour, 
and  so,  rolling  about,  squash  them,  or  you  must  sit 
up  patiently  with  a  moderator-lamp,  a  cigar,  and  a 
glass  of  grog,  and  hunt  them.  You  will  be  a  mighty 
hunter  before  the  morning.  Don't  be  sanguine 
enough  to  imagine  that  you  can  kill  the  wretches 
with  the  mere  finger  and  thumb.  I  have  found  a 
pair  of  snuffers  serviceable  in  crushing  their  lives 


MERCHANTS   AND  MONEY-CHANGERS.  205 

out.  A  brass  wafer-stamp  (if  you  have  a  strong 
arm  and  a  sure  aim)  is  not  a  bad  thing  to  be  down 
on  them  with ;  I  have  heard  a  noose,  or  lasso  of 
packthread,  to  snare  and  strangle  them  unawares, 
spoken  of  favourably ;  but  a  hammer,  and  a  ripping- 
chisel  of  the  pattern  used  by  the  late  Mr.  Manning, 
are  the  best  vermin  annihilators !  I  think  the  Rus- 
sian government  ought  to  give  a  premium  for  every 
head  of  bugs  brought  to  the  chief  police-office,  as 
our  Saxon  kings  used  to  do  for  wolves.  Only  I 
don't  think  the  imperial  revenue  would  quite  suffice 
for  the  first  week's  premium — were  it  but  the  tenth 
part  of  a  copeck  per  cent. 

The  subject  of  vermin  always  raises  my  ire,  even 
when  I  fall  across  it  accidentally.  I  have  been  so 
bitten!  We  can  pardon  a  cripple  for  denouncing 
the  vicious  system  of  swaddling  babies ;  and  who 
could  be  angry  with  Titus  Gates  for  declaiming 
against  the  iniquity  of  corporal  punishment  ? 

Unless  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  take  lodgings 
in  the  Boot  Row  of  the  Gostinnbi-dvor — which  as 
there  are  no  dwelling-rooms  there,  would  be  but  a 
cold-ground  lodging — it  is  very  nearly  time  for  me, 
I  opine,  to  leave  off  glozing  over  boots,  and  go  else- 
where. But  I  could  write  a  quarto  about  them. 
Once  more,  however,  like  the  thief  at  Tyburn,  trav- 
ersing the  cart,  often  taking  leave,  because  loth  to 
depart,  I  must  claim  a  fresh,  though  brief  reprieve ; 
for  see !  here  are  the  children's  boots  ;  and  you  who 
love  the  little  people  must  come  with  me,  and  gaze. 

Such  boot-vines  ! — such  espaliers  of  shoes !  such 
pendant  clusters  of  the  dearest,  tottiest,  nattiest, 


206  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

gaudiest,  miniatures  of  grown-men's  boots,  all  in- 
tended for  young  Russia!  Field- Marshals'  boots, 
Chevalier  Guards'  boots,  steppe  boots,  courier  boots, 
cossack  boots,  Lesquian  boots,  Kasan  boots,  but  all 
fitted  to  the  puddy  feet  of  the  civil  and  military  func- 
tionaries of  the  empire  of  Lilliput.  Long  live  the 
Czar  Tomas  Thumbovitch,  second  of  the  name ! 
And  all  the  boots  are  picturesque  ;  for  the  Russians 
have  a  delightful  custom  of  dressing  their  little  chil- 
dren, either  in  the  quaint  old  Muscovite  costume,  or 
in  the  dress  of  some  tributary,  or  conquered,  or  me- 
diatized nation.  One  of  the  Nous  Autres  adult, 
must  wear,  perforce,  either  some  choking  uniform, 
or  else  a  suit  from  Jencens  on  the  Nevskoi,  and  of 
the  latest  Parisian  cut ;  but,  as  a  little  boy — from 
four  to  eight  years  old  say,  (for,  after  that,  he  be- 
comes a  cadet,  and  is  duly  choked  in  a  military  uni- 
form, and  bonneted  with  a  military  headdress,)  he 
wears  the  charming  costume  of  a  little  Pole,  or  a 
Circassian,  or  a  Lesquian,  or  a  Mongol,  or  a  Kirghiz, 
or  a  Cossack  of  the  Don,  the  Wolga,  the  Oural, 
the  Ukraine,  or  the  Taurida.  Nothing  prettier  than 
to  see  these  dumpy  little  Moscovs  toddling  along 
with  their  mammas,  or  their  nurses,  in  the  verdant 
alleys  of  the  Summer  Garden;  huge,  flattened- 
pumpkin  shaped  Cossack  turban-caps,  or  Tartar 
tarbouches,  or  Volhynian  Schliapas,  or  Armenian 
calpacks  on  their  heads ;  their  tiny  bodies  arrayed 
in  costly  little  caftans,  some  of  Persian  silk  stiff 
with  embroidery,  some  of  velvet,  some  of  the  soft 
Circassian  camel  and  goat-hair  fabrics,  some  of  cloth 
of  gold,  or  silver;  with  splendiferous  little  sashes, 


MERCHANTS   AND   MONEY-CHANGERS.  207 

and  jewelled  cartouch-cases  on  their  breasts,  and 
sparkling  yataghans,  and  three-hilted  poniards  (like 
Celtic  dirks) ;  and  the  multi-coloured  little  boots  you 
see  in  the  Gostinnoi'-dvor,  made  of  scarlet,  yellow, 
sky-blue,  black-topped-with-red,  and  sometimes  white 
leather,  which  last,  with  a  little  pair  of  gilt  spurs,  are 
really  delectable  to  look  upon.  As  the  children  be- 
come older,  these  pretty  dresses  are  thrown  aside, 
and  the  boys  become  slaves,  (thrice  noble  and  slave- 
possessing  though  they  be,)  and  are  ticketted,  and 
numbered,  and  registered,  and  drilled,  and  taught 
many  languages,  and  not  one  honest  or  ennobling 
thing;  for  the  greater  glory  of  God,  and  our  Lord 
the  Czar.  Would  you  quarrel  with  me  for  liking 
children  in  fancy  dresses  ?  In  truth,  I  love  to  see 
them  as  fantastically-gayly  dressed  as  silk,  and  vel- 
vet, and  gay  colours,  and  artistic  taste  can  make 
them.  Never  mind  the  crosspatches  who  sneer 
about  us  in  England,  and  say  our  children  look 
like  little  Highland  kilt-stalkers,  and  little  ballet- 
girls.  I  would  rather  that,  than  that  they  should 
look  like  little  Quakers,  or  little  tailors,  or  little 
bankers,  or  little  beneficed  clergymen,  or  little  don- 
keys, which  last-named  is  the  similitude  assumed 
by  the  asinine  jacket,  trousers,  frill,  and  round  hat. 
Dress  up  the  children  like  the  characters  in  the  story- 
books. They  don't  belong  to  our  world  yet ;  they 
are  our  living  story-books  in  themselves,  the  only 
links  we  have  between  those  glorious  castles  in  the 
air  and  these  grim  banks,  talking-shops,  and  union 
workhouses,  on  earth,  here.  I  regret  that  the  Rus- 
sians do  not  oftener  extend  their  picturesque  choice 


208  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

of  wardrobe  to  the  little  girls.  Now  and  again,  but 
very,  very  rarely,  I  have  seen  some  infant  Gossuda- 
rinia — some  little  lady  of  six  or  eight  summers — 
dressed  in  the  long,  straight,  wide- sleeved  farthin- 
gale, the  velvet  and  jewelled  kakoschnik  like  the 
painted  aureole  of  a  Byzantine  saint,  the  long  lace 
veil,  the  broad  girdle  tied  in  an  X  knot  at  the  stom- 
acher, and  the  embroidered  slippers  with  golden 
heels,  which  still  form  the  costume  de  cour  of  the 
Russian  ladies ;  but  in  too  many  instances  the  per- 
nicious influence  of  Mesdames  Zoe  Falcon  and 
Jessie  Field,  Marchandes  des  Modes,  have  been  pre- 
dominant; and  the  little  girls  are  dressed  after  the 
execrable  engravings  in  the  fashion-books,  in  flimsy 
gauze  and  artificial  flower  bonnets,  many-fringed 
mantelettes,  many-flounced  skirts,  lace-edged  panta- 
lettes, open-work  stockings,  (pink  silk,  of  course!) 
and  bronzed-kid  bottines.  I  mind  the  time  when 
little  girls  at  home  used  to  be  dressed  prettily, 
quaintly,  like  little  gipsies  or  little  Swiss  shepherd- 
esses ;  but  I  shudder  for  the  day  now  when,  return- 
ing to  England,  I  shall  see  small  Venuses  swaying 
down  Regent  Street  with  iron-hooped  petticoats, 
and  decapitated  sugar-loaf-like  Talmas,  and  bird- 
cage bonnets  half  off  their  little  heads.  Why  not 
have  the  paniers — the  real  hoops — back,  ladies,  at 
once:  the  red-headed  mules,  patches,  hair-powder, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  Louis  Quinze  Wardour- 
Street  shoppery,  not  forgetting  the  petite  soupcrs, 
and  the  Abbes,  and  the  Madelonnettes,  and  the 
Pare  aux  Cerfs  ?  Be  consistent.  You  borrow  your 
hoops  from  the  French  ladies'  great  grandmothers — 


MERCHANTS  AND  MONEY-CHANGERS.      209 

are  there  no  traditions  of  their  morals  to  be  imported, 
as  good  as  new,  in  this  year  fifty-six  ? 

To  reform  female  costume  is  far  beyond  my  pow- 
ers. Much  might  be  done,  perhaps,  by  administer- 
ing forty  blows  with  a  stick  to  every  male  worker  in 
metals  convicted  of  forging  steel  sous-jupes,  and  by 
sentencing  every  female  constructor  of  a  birdcage 
bonnet  to  learn  by  heart  the  names  and  addresses  of 
all  the  petitioners  against  Sunday  park  bands.  Still 
I  am  moved  by  a  humble  ambition  to  introduce  a 
new  little-boy  costume  into  my  native  country. 
Very  many  of  the  Russian  gentry  dress  their  chil- 
dren in  the  exact  costume  (in  miniature)  of  our  old 
friend  the  Ischvostchik,  and  few  dresses,  certainly, 
could  be  so  picturesque,  so  quaint,  and  so  thorough- 
ly Russian.  There  is  a  small  nephew  of  mine  some- 
where on  the  southern  English  coast,  and  whom 
(supposing  him  to  have  surmounted  that  last  jam- 
pot difficulty  by  this  time)  I  intend,  with  his  parents' 
permission,  to  dress  in  this  identical  Ischvostchik's 
costume.  I  see,  in  my  mind's  eye,  that  young  Chris- 
tian walking  down  the  High  Street,  the  pride  of  his 
papa  and  mamma,  clad  in  a  gala  costume  of  Mus- 
covite fashioning — a  black  velvet  caftan  with  silver 
sugar-loaf  buttons,  and  an  edging  of  braid ;  a  regu- 
lar-built Ischvostchik's  hat  with  a  peacock's  feather ; 
baggy  little  breeches  of  the  bed-ticking  design  ;  and 
little  boots  with  scarlet  tops !  Bran  new  from  the 
Gostinnoi-dvor  have  I  the  hats  and  boots.  The  cus- 
tom-house officers  of  four  nations  have  already  ex- 
amined and  admired  them,  and — doubtless  in  their 
tenderness  for  little  boys — have  allowed  them  to  pass 


210  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

duty  free.  There  only  remain  the  stern-faced  men 
in  the  shabby  coats  at  the  Dover  Douane,  to  turn 
my  trunks  into  a  Hampton  Court  maze,  and  I  shall 
be  able  to  bring  those  articles  of  apparel  safely  to 
the  desired  haven.  Who  knows  but  I  may  intro- 
duce a  new  fashion  among  the  youth  of  this  land ; 
that  the  apothecary,  the  lawyer,  nay,  the  great  may- 
or's wife  of  Bevistown,  may  condescend  eventually 
to  array  her  offspring  after  the  fashion  I  set !  Lord 
Petersham  had  his  coat,  Count  D'Orsay  his  hat, 
Blucher  his  boot,  Hobson  his  choice,  Howqua  his 
mixture,  Br.adshaw  his  guide,  Daffy  his  elixir,  and 
Sir  John  Cutler  his  stockings, — why  may  not  I 
aspire  to  day  when  in  the  cheap  tailors'  windows 
I  may  see  a  diminutive  waxen  figure  arrayed  in  the 
Ischvostchik's  costume  I  have  imported  and  made 
popular  ? 

Some  of  these  little  children's  boots  are  quite 
marvels  in  the  way  of  gold  and  silver  embroidery. 
The  Russians  are  nearly  as  skilful  in  this  branch  of 
industry  as  the  Beguines  of  Flanders;  and  since 
the  general  confiscation  of  ecclesiastical  property  by 
Catherine  the  Second  (who  certainly  adhered  to  the 
totoporcine  principle  in  a  right  imperial  manner,) 
there  have  been  many  convents  in  the  interior  of 
Russia  which  have  been  self-supporting,  and  have 
even  acquired  ample  revenues,  through  the  skill  of 
the  nuns  and  the  orphan  girls  whom  they  receive  as 
inmates,  in  embroidery.  Du  reste,  Russians  as  a 
nation  are  adepts  in  elaborate  handiwork — imitative 
"only,  be  it  well  understood.  You  must  set  them  to 
work  by  pattern,  for  of  invention  they  are  compara- 


MERCHANTS  AND   MONEY-CHANGERS.  211 

tively  barren ;  but  whether  the  thing  to  be  imitated 
be  a  miniature  by  Isabey  or  an  Aubusson  carpet,  a 
Limerick  glove  or  a  Napier's  steam-engine,  a  Sevres 
vase  or  a  Grecian  column,  an  Enfield  rifle  or  a  chro- 
nometer by  Mr.  John  Bennett  of  Cheapside,  they 
will  turn  you  out  a  copy,  so  close,  so  faithfully  fol- 
lowed in  its  minutest  details,  that  you  will  have  con- 
siderable difficulty  in  distinguishing  the  original  from 
the  duplicate.  There  is  an  immense  leaven  of  the 
Chinese  Tartar  in  the  Tartar-Russian.  The  small 
eyes,  the  high  cheek-bone,  sallow  complexions  and 
nervous  gesticulation,  I  will  not  insist  upon ;  the 
similarities  are  so  ethnologically  obvious.*  But 
there  are  many  more  points  of  resemblance  between 
the  Russians  and  the  Chinese.  Both  people  are  ha- 
bitually false  and  thievish,  both  are  faithless  in  di- 
plomacy, bragging  in  success,  mendacious  in  defeat, 
cruel  and  despotic  always.  Both  nations  are  jealous 
of,  and  loathe,  yet  imitate,  the  manners  and  customs 
of  strangers;  both  have  an  exaggerated  and  idola- 
trous emperor-worship,  and  Joss-worship ;  both  are 
passionately  addicted  to  tea,  fireworks,  graven  ima- 
ges, and  the  use  of  the  stick  as  a  penal  remedy. 
Both  have  enormous  armies  on  paper,  and  tremen- 
dous fleets  in  harbour,  and  forts  impregnable  (till 
they  are  taken,  after  which  misadventure  they  turn 
up  to  have  been  nothing  but  mere  blockhouses ;) 
both  nations  are  slaves  to  a  fatiguing  and  silly  eti- 
quette ;  both  are  outwardly  polite  and  inwardly  bar- 
barous ;  both  are  irreclaimably  wedded  to  a  fidgetty, 

*  It  should  be  taken  into  consideration  that  of  ethnology,  as  a 
science,  1  am  totally  ignorant. 


212  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

elaborately-clumsy  system  of  centralization — boards 
of  punishments,  boards  of  rewards,  boards  of  digni- 
ties* Both,  iii  organization,  are  intensely  literary 
and  academical,  and  in  actuality,  grossly  ignorant. 
The  Chinese  have  the  mandarin  class  system"  ;  the 
Russians  have  the  Tchinn  with  its  fourteen  grades 
— both  bureaucratic  pyramids,  stupendous  and  rot- 
ten. The  Chinese  bamboo  their  wives ;  the  Rus- 
sians bamboo  their  wives  ("  And  so  do  the  English," 
I  hear  a  critic  say :  but  neither  Russian  nor  Chinese 
incurs  the  risk  of  six  months  at  the  treadmill  for  so 
maltreating  his  spouse.)  In  both  empires  there  is 
the  same  homogeneous  nullity  on  the  part  of  the 
common  people — I  mean  forty  millions  or  so  feeding 
and  fighting  and  being  oppressed  and  beaten  like 
ONE,  without  turning  a  hair  in  the  scale  of  political 
power  ;  and — here  I  bring  my  parallel  triumphantly 
to  a  close — both  nations  possess  a  language  which, 
though  utterly  and  radically  dissimilar,  are  both  co- 
pious, both  written  in  incomprehensible  characters, 
both  as  arbitrary  in  orthography  and  pronunciation 
as  their  emperors  are  arbitrary  in  power,  and  both 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  of  perfect  acquisition  by 
western  Europeans.  I  declare,  as  an  honest  travel- 
er, holding  up  my  hand  in  the  court  of  criticism,  and 
desirous  of  being  tried  by  Lord  Chief  Justice  Aris- 
tarchus  and  my  country,  that  I  never  passed  a  week 
in  Russia  without  thinking  vividly  of  what  I  had 
read  about  the  Celestial  Empire  ;  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  read  the  list  of  nominations,  promotions, 
'  preferments,  and  decorations  in  the  Pekin — I  beg 
pardon — I  mean  the  St.  Petersburg — Gazette,  with- 


MERCHANTS  AND  MONEY-CHANGERS.      213 

out  thinking  of  the  mandarins,  and  the  peacocks' 
feathers,  and  the  blue  buttons,  and  the  yellow  gir- 
dles ;  that  the  frequent  application  of  the  stick  was 
wonderfully  like  the  rice-paper  representations  of  the 
administration  of  the  bamboo ;  that  the  "  let  it  be 
so  "  at  the  end  of  an  oukase  of  the  Russian  Czar, 
struck  me  as  being  own  rhetorical  brother  to  the 
"  respect  this  "  which  terminates  the  yellow-poster 
proclamations  of  the  Chinese  emperor. 

I  must  do  the  Russians  the  justice  to  admit  that 
they  do  not  attempt  to  tell  the  time  of  day  by  the 
cat's  eyes  ;  and  that,  though  arrant  boasters,  they 
are  not  the  miserable  cowards  the  Chinese  are.  As 
a  people,  and  collectively,  the  Russians  are  brave  in 
the  highest  degree  ;  but  it  is  in  their  imitative  skill 
that  the  Russians,  while  they  excel,  so  strongly 
resemble  their  Mantchou  Tartar  cousins.  They 
have,  it  is  true,  a  sufficient  consciousness  of  the 
fitness  of  things  to  avoid  falling  into  the  absurd 
errors  to  which  the  Chinese,  from  their  slavish  adhe- 
rence to  a  given  pattern,  are  liable.  They  do  not, 
if  a  cracked  but  mended  tea-cup  be  sent  them  as  a 
model,  send  home  an  entire  tea-service  duly  cracked 
and  mended  with  little  brass  clamps ;  they  do  not 
make  half-a-dozen  pair  of  nankeen  pantaloons,  each 
.with  a  black  patch  in  the  'seat,  because  the  originals 
had  been  so  repaired;  neither  do  they  carefully 
scrape  the  nap  off  a  new  dress-coat  at  the  seams,  in 
faithful  imitation  of  the  threadbare  model  ;  but, 
whatever  you  choose  to  set  before  a  Russian,  from 
millinery  to  murder,  from  architecture  to  arsenic, 
that  will  he  produce  in  duplicate  with  the  most 


214  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

wonderful  skill  and  fidelity.  There  is,  to  be  sure, 
always  something  wanting  in  these  wondrous  Rus- 
sian copies.  In  their  pictures,  their  Corinthian  col- 
umns, their  Versailles  fountains,  their  operas,  their 
lace  bonnets,  there  is  an  indefinable  soup$on  of  can- 
dle-grease and  bears'  hides,  and  the  North  Pole,  and 
the  man  with  the  bushy  beard  who  had  to  work  at 
these  fine  things  for  nothing — because  he  was  a 
slave.  Can  you  imagine  a  wedding  trousseau,  all 
daintily  displayed — all  satin,  gauze,  orange  flowers, 
Brussels  lace,  and  pink  rosettes — which  had  been 
clumsily  handled  by  some  Boy  Jones  ?  Imagine 
the  marks  of  thumbs  and  greasy  sooty  fingers  dimly 
disfiguring  the  rich  textures !  That,  to  me,  is  Rus- 
sian civilization. 


THE   SLOBODA.      A  RUSSIAN   VILLAGE. 

THIS  is  the  Sloboda,  or  village,  say  of  VolnoY- 
Voloschtchok,  and  there  are  five  hundred  villages  like 
it.  Still  you  are  to  know  that  Volnoi-Voloschtchok 
is  some  twenty-imperial  versts  from  the  government' 
town  of  Rjew,  in  the  government  of  Twer,  and  as 
all  men  should  know,  about  half-way  to  Mocow  the 
Holy ;  the  Starai,  or  old  town,  as  the  Russians  lov- 
ingly term  it,  and  which  holds  the  nearest  place  in 
their  affections  to  Kieff  the  Holiest,  which  they  call 
the  mother  of  Russian  cities.  This,  then,  is  the 


THE    SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  215 

seigneural  sloboda  of  Volnoi,  (as  we  will  conclude 
to  call  it,  for  shortness ;)  and  you  are  now  to  hear 
all  about  it,  and  its  lord  and  master. 

I  have  come  from  Twer  on  the  Volga,  on  what, 
in  Bohemian  euphuism,  is  known  as  the  Grand 
Scud.  This,  though  difficult  of  exact  translation, 
may  be  accepted  as  implying  a  sort  of  purposeless 
journeying — a  viatorial  meandering — a  pilgrimage 
to  the  shrine  of  our  Lady  of  Haphazard — an  expe- 
dition in  which  charts,  compasses,  and  chronometers 
have  been  left  behind  as  needless  impediments,  and 
in  which  any  degree  of  latitude  the  traveller  may 
happen  to  find  himself  in,  is  cheerfully  accepted  as 
an  accomplished  fact. 

On  the  Grand  Scud  then,  with  a  pocket-book 
'passably  well  lined  with  oleaginous  rouble  notes, 
and  a  small  wardrobe  in  a  leathern  bag,  I  have  come 
with  my  friend,  ALEXIS  HARDSHELLOVITCH.  You 
start  at  my  fellow-traveller's  patronymic,  sounding, 
as  it  does,  much  more  of  a  New  York  oyter-cellar 
than  of  a  district  in  the  government  of  Twer.  Here 
is  the  meaning  of  Hardshellovitch.  Alexis,  though 
a  noble  Russian  of  innumerable  descents,  and  of  un- 
mistakable Tartar  lineage,  though  wearing  (at  St. 
Petersburg,)  the  rigorous  helmet,  sword,  and  chok-  ' 
ing  suit ;  though  one  of  the  corps  of  imperial  pages, 
and  hoping  to  be  a  hussar  of  Grodno  by  this  time 
next  year,  is  in  speech,  habits,  and  manners,  an 
unadulterated  citizen  of  the  smartest  nation  in  the 
creation.  For  Alexis's  father,  the  general,  was  for 
many  years  Russian  Minister  Plenipotentiary  at 
Washington  in  the  district  of  Hail  Columbia !  U.  S. 


216  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

While  there,  he  very  naturally  fell  in  love  with,  and 
married,  one  of  the  beautiful  young  daughters  of' 
that  land;  and  Alexis  was  the  satisfactory  result. 
After  a  hesitation  of  some  seventy  years  standing, 
the  general  diplomatically  made  his  mind  up  to  die, 
and  his  family  availed  themselves  of  the  circum- 
stance to  bury  him.  Madame  the  ex- Ambassadress 
remained  in  Washington,  and  his  son,  being  des- 
tined for  the  Russian  service,  was  sent  to  St.  Peters- 
burg to  be  educated.  Fancy  the  young  Anacharsis 
being  sent  from  Athenian  Academe  to  be  educated 
among  the  Scythians  ;  or  imagine  Mrs.  HOBSON 
NEWCOME,  of  Bryanstone  Square,  sending  one  of 
her  dear  children  to  be  brought  up  among  the  Zulu 
Kaffirs!  The  unfortunate  Alexis  was  addressed, 
with  care,  to  two  ancient  aunts  (on  the  Muscovite 
side,)  in  the  Italianskaia  Oulitsa  at  St.  Petersburg. 
These  ladies  were  of  the  old  Russian  way  of  think- 
ing ;  spoke  not  a  word  of  French ;  took  gray  snuff; 
drank  mint  brandy,  and  fed  the  young  neophyte 
(accustomed  to  the  luxurious  fare  of  a  diplomatic 
cuisne  and  Washington  table  d'hotes)  on  Stchi 
(cabbage  soup,)  batwinja  (cold  fish  soup,)  pirogues 
(rneat  pies,)  and  kvass.  He  had  been  used  to  sit 
under  the  Reverend  Dr.  D.  Slocum  Whittler  (Re- 
generated-Rowdy  persuasion)  in  a  neat  whitewashed 
temple,  where  lyric  aspirations  to  Zion  were  sung  to 
the  music  of  Moore's  Melodies ;  he  suddenly  found 
himself  in  a  land  where  millions  of  people  bow  down 
billions  of  times  every  day  to  trillions  of  sacred  Sar- 
acens' heads.  He  was  soon  removed  to  the  Ecole 
des  Pages — that  grand,  gilt,  gingerbread  structure 


THE   SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  217 

(I  do  not  call  it  so  as  in  any  way  reflecting  on  its 
flimsiness,  but  because  it  is,  outwardly,  the  exact 
colour  of  under-done  g/ngerbread,  profusely  orna- 
mented with  gold-leaf,)  in  the  Sadovvaia,  and  which 
was  formerly  the  palace  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John 
of  Jerusalem.  Here,  he  found  French,  German,  and 
English  professors ;  but  though  he  has  been  four 
years  a  page,  the  poor  lad  has  been  in  a  continual 
state  of  bewilderment  ever  since  he  left  America. 
He  has  scarcely,  as  yet,  mastered  the  first  flight  of 
the  Giant's  Staircase  of  Russian  lexicology ;  the  Rus- 
sian gift  of  tongues  seems  denied  to  him ;  his  French 
smacks  of  German,  and  his  German  of  French ; 
and  his  English,  which,  miserable  youth,  is  of  all 
languages  the  one  he  delights  most  to  speak,  is  get- 
ting into  an  ancient  and  fishy  condition.  He  misses 
his  grammatical  tip,  frequently.  He  has  an  exten- 
sive salad  of  languages  in  his  head ;  but  he  has 
broken  the  vinegar-cruet,  and  mislaid  the  oil-flask, 
and  can't  find  the  hard-boiled  eggs.  All  his  sympa- 
thies are  Anglo-Saxon.  He  likes  roast  meat,  cricket, 
boating,  and  jovial  conversation;  and  he  is  hand 
and  foot  a  slave  to  the  Dutch-doli-with-an-iron-mask 
discipline  of  the  imperial  pages,  and  the  imperial 
court,  and  the  imperial  prisoners' -van  and  county- 
gaol  system  generally.  He  is  fond  of  singing  comic 
songs.  He  had  better  not  be  too  funny  in  Russia ; 
there  is  a  hawk  with  a  double  head  in  the  next 
room.  He  is  (as  far  as  he  has  sense  enough  to  be) 
a  republican  in  principle.  The  best  thing  he  can  do 
is  to  learn  by  heart,  and  keep  repeating  the  Angli- 
can litany,  substituting  Good  Czar  for  Good  Lord. 
10 


218  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

What  a  terrible  state  of  things  for  an  inoffensive 
and   well-meaning   young   man !      Not    to    know 
whether  he  is  on  his  head  or  his  heels,  morally.     To 
be    neither  flesh,  nor  fowl,  nor   good  red   herring, 
nationally.     I  wonder  how  many  years  it  will  take 
him  to  become  entirely  Russian :  how  long  he  will 
be  before  he  will  learn  to  dance,  and  perform  the 
ceremony  of  the  kou-tou — I  mean  the  court  bow — 
and  leave  off  telling  the  truth,  keeping  the  eighth 
commandment,  and  looking  people  straight  in  the 
face.     Not  very  long,  I  am  afraid.     The    Russian 
academical  course  of  moral  ethics  is  but  a  short  cur- 
riculum ;    and,   once,    matriculated,   you   graduate 
rapidly.     In  no  other  country  but  Russia — not  even 
in  our  own  sunsetless  empire,  with  its  myriad  tribu- 
taries— can  you  find  such  curious  instances  of  de- 
nationalization.   Alexis  Hardshellovitch  had  a  friend 
whose  acquaintance  I  had  also  the  honour  of  mak- 
ing, who  was  also  in  the  Corps  des  Pages^  and  who 
came  to  samovarise,  or  take  tea  with  us,  one  even- 
ing, in  patent-leather  boots  and  white  kid  gloves ; 
and  who  talked  so  prettily  about  potichomanie  and 
Mademoiselle   Bagdanoff,  the  -ballet-dancer,  (all  in 
the  purest  Parisian,)  that  I  expected  the  next  sub- 
jects of  his  conversation  would  be  Shakspeare  and 
the  musical   glasses.     What   do   you   imagine    his 
name  was  ?     Genghis  Khan  !  (pronounced  Zinghis 
Khan.)     He  was  of  the  creamiest  Tartar  extraction, 
and  mincingly  confessed  that  he  was  descended  in 
a  direct  line  from  that  conqueror.     He  was  a  great 
prince  at  home  ;  but  the   Russians  had  mediatized 
him,  and  he  was  to  be  an  officer  in  the  Mussulman 


THE    SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  219 

escort  of  the  Czar.  He  had  frequently  partaken  of 
roast  horse  in  his  boyhood,  and  knew  where  the  best 
tap  of  mares'  milk  was,  dow.n  Mongolian-Tartary 
way,  I  have  no  doubt ;  but  I  have  seen  him  eat  ices 
at  Dominique's  on  the  Nevskoi  with  much  grace, 
and  he  was  quite  a  lady's  man. 

Alexis  Hardshellovitch  does  not  feel  his  excep- 
tional and  abnormal  position  to  any  painful  extent ; 
inasmuch  as,  though  one  of  the  worthiest  and  most 
amiable  fellows  alive,  he  is  a  tremendous  fool.  He 
is  a  white  Russian — not  coming  from  White  Russia, 
understand,  but  with  white  eyelashes,  and  fawn- 
coloured  hair,  and  a  suety  complexion,  and  eyes  that 
have  not  been  warranted  to  wash,  for  they  have  run 
terribly,  and  the  ground-colour  has  been  quite  boiled 
out  of  them.  He  has  a  glimmering,  but  not  decided 
notion,  of  his  want  of  brains  himself.  "  I  know  I 
am  ugly,"  he  candidly  says,  "  my  dear  good  mother 
always  told  me  so,  and  my  father,  who  was  bel  homme, 
used  to  hit  me  cracks  because  I  had  such  large  ears. 
I  must  be  ugly,  because  the  Director  of  the  Corps 
has  never  selected  me  to  be  sent  to  the  palace  as  a 
page  of  the  chamber.  I  should  like  to  be  a  page  of 
the  chamber,  for  they  wear  chamarrures  of  gold  bul- 
lion on  their  skirts  behind ;  but  they  only  pick  out 
the  handsome  pages.  They  say  I  should  give  the 
Empress  an  attack  of  nerves  with  my  ears.  Yet  I 
am  a  general  and  ambassador's  son.  I,  Some — " 
He  spits.  "  But  I'm  not  a  fool.  No ;  I  guess  not. 
Prince  Bouillabaissoff  says  I  am  a  bete  ;  but  Genghis 
Khan  tells  me  that  I  have  the  largest  head  of  all  the 
imperial  pages.  How  can  I  be  a  fool  with  such  a 


220  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

large  head  ?  Tell."  The  honest  youth  has,  it  must 
be  admitted,  an  enormous  nut.  Though  I  love  him 
for  his  goodness  and  simplicity,  I  am  conscious  al- 
ways of  an  uneasy  desire  to  take  that  head  of  his 
between  my  hands,  as  if  it  were  indeed  a  nut,  and 
of  the  cocoa  species,  and  crack  it  against  a  stone 
wall,  to  see  if  there  be  any  milk  to  be  accounted  for, 
inside. 

I  have  been  staying,  in  this  broiling  midsummer 
mad-dog  weather,  at  the  hospitable  country  mansion 
of  Alexis  Hardshellovitch's  aunts  ;  and  we  two  have 
come  on  the  Grand  Scud  in  a  respectable  old  caleche, 
supposed  to  have  been  purchased  in  France  by  the 
diplomatic  general  during  the  occupation  of  Paris 
by  the  allies  in  eighteen  hundred  and  fifteen.  It  has 
been  pieced  and  repaired  by  two  generations  of 
Russian  coach-cobblers  since ;  has  been  relined  with 
some  fancy  stuff  which  I  believe  to  have  been,  in 
the  origin,  window-curtains ;  the  vehicle,  probably, 
has  not  been  painted  since  the  Waterloo  campaign, 
but  the  wheels  are  plentifully  greased ;  we  have  an 
ample  provision  of  breaks,  and  drags,  and  "  skids  ; " 
we  have  three  capital  horses — one  a  little  black  Bit- 
chok — lithe,  limber,  long-maned,  and  vicious,  but  an 
admirable  galloper,  and  dressee  a  la  voUe,  and  we 
have  a  very  paragon  of  a  postilion  or  coachman,  I 
scarcely  know  whether  to  call  him  Ischvostchik  or 
Jemstchik,  for  now  he  sits  on  the  box,  and  now  he 
bestrides  the  splashboard,  where  the  splinter-bar  is 
his  brother,  and  the  traces  make  acquaintance  with 
his  boots.  I  say  he  is  a  paragon  ;  for  he  can  go  a 
week  without  getting  drunk,  never  falls  asleep  on 


THE    SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  221 

the  box,  and  however  bad  the  roads  may  be,  never 
lands  the  caleche  in  a  deep  hole.  Inexhaustibly 
good-tempered  and  untiringly  musical  he  is,  of 
course ;  he  would  not  be  a  Russian  else.  He  be- 
longs to  Alexis — or  rather,  will  do  so  at  his  majority ; 
when  that  large-headed  page  will  possess  much  land 
and  many  beeves — human  beeves,  I  mean,  with 
beards  and  boots,  and  baggy  breeches.  But  I  don't 
think  that  Alexis  will  administer  much  STICK  to  his 
slaves  when  he  comes  to  his  kingdom.  He  has  a 
hard  shell,  but  a  soft  heart. 

It  is  lucky  we  have  Petr'  Petrovitch  the  paragon 
with  us  in  our  journey  from  Rjew,  for  we  have  long 
left  the  great  Moscow  Road,  (I  don't  speak  of  the 
rail  but  of  the  chaussee)  and  have  turned  into  an 
abominable  Sentier  de  Traverse,  a  dreadful  region, 
where  marshes  have  had  the  black  vomit,  and  spumed 
lumps  of  misshapen  raven-like  forest — black  roots  of 
trees — inky  jungles,  so  to  speak.  Can  you  imagine 
any  thing  more  horrible  than  a  dwarf  forest — for  the 
trees  are  never  tall  hereabout — stems  and  branches 
hugger-muggering  close  together  like  conspirators 
weaving  some  diabolical  plot,  with  here  and  there  a 
gap 'of  marsh  pool  between  the  groups  of  trees,  as  if 
some  woodland  criminals,  frightened  at  their  own  tur- 
pitude, had  despairingly  drowned  themselves,  and  rid- 
ded the  earth  of  their  black  presence.  Some  corpses 
of  these  float  on  the  surface  of  the  marsh,  but  the 
summer  time  has  been  as  merciful  to  them  as  the 
redbreasts  were  to  the  children  in  the  wood,  and  has 
covered  them  with  a  green  pall.  There  must  be 
capital  teal,  and  widgeon  and  snipe-shooting  here  in 


222  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

autumn — shooting  enough  to  satisfy  that  insatiate 
sportsman,  Mr.  Ivan  Tourgudnieff;  but,  at  present, 
the  genus  homo  does  oot  shoot.  He  is  shot  by  red- 
dart,  from  the  inexhaustible  quiver  of  the  sun.  He 
does  not  hunt ;  he  is  hunted  by  rolling  clouds  of 
pungent  dust,  by  disciplined  squadrons  of  gnats,  and 
by  flying  cohorts  of  blue-bottles  and  gadflies.  The 
sun  has  baked  the  earth  into  angular  clods,  and  our 
caleche  and  horses  go  hopping  over  the  acclivities 
like  a  daddy-long-legs  weak  in  the  knee-joints  over 
a  home-baked  crusty  loaf.  There  is  no  cultivation 
in  this  part — no  trees — no  houses.  I  begin  to  grow 
as  hotly  thirsty  as  on  that  famous  day  when  I  drank 
out  of  the  POT,  walking  twenty  miles,  from  Lancaster 
to  Preston  ;  but  out  of  evil  cometh  good  in  Russian 
travelling.  As  you  are  perfectly  certain,  before  start- 
ing, that  you  will  not  find  any  houses  of  entertain- 
ment on  the  road,  except  at  stated  distances ;  and 
that  the  refreshments  provided  there  will  probably 
be  intolerable,  no  person  in  a  sane  mental  condition 
either  rides  or  drives  a  dozen  miles  in  the  country 
without  taking  with  him  a  complete  apparatus  for 
inward  restoration.  We  have  a  comfortable  square 
box  covered  with  tin,  which  unthinking  persons 
might  rashly  assume  to  be  a  dressing-case,  but  which 
in  reality  contains  a  pint-and-a-half  samovar;  a  store 
of  fine  charcoal  thereunto  belonging;  a  tchainik,  or 
tea-pot  of  terra  cotta,  tea-cups,  knives,  forks,  and 
tea-canister.  If  we  were  real  Russians — hot  as  it 
is — we  should  incite  Petr'  Petrovitch  to  kindle  a  fire, 
heat  the  samovar,  and  set  to  tea-drinking  with  much 
gusto.  As  we  have  Anglo-Saxon  notions,  if  not 


THE   SLOBODA.      A  RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  223 

blood,  we  resort  to  that  other  compartment  of  the 
tin  chest  where  the  mighty  case-bottle  of  cold  brandy 
and  water  is — large,  squab,  flat,  and  fitting  into  the 
bottom  of  the  box.  Then,  each  lighting  a  papiros, 
we  throw  ourselves  back  in  the  caleche.  Petr'  Petro- 
vitch  has  not  been  forgotten  in  the  case-bottle  line, 
and  we  bid  our  conductor  to  resume  the  grandest  of 
Scuds.  We  have  an  indefinite  idea  that  we  shall 
come  upon  one  of  Prince  BouillabaissofT's  villages 
in  an  hour  or  so.  This,  too,  is  about  the  time  to 
tell  you  that  Alexis,  though  an  imperial  page,  is  clad 
in  a  Jim  Crow  hat,  a  baker's  jacket,  nankeen  panta- 
loons, and  a  Madras  handkerchief  loosely  tied  round 
his  turn-down  shirt  collar.  These  are  the  vacations 
of  the  imperial  pages — very  long  vacations  they 
have — from  May  to  August,  and  once  in  the  country, 
Alexis  may  dress  as  he  pleases ;  but  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, it  would  be  as  much  as  his  large  ears  are  worth 
to  appear  without  the  regulation  choke  outfit — the 
sword,  casque,  belt,  and,  to  use  an  expression  of 
Mumchance,  "  coat  buttoned  up  to  here."  Friend 
of  my  youth !  why  canst  thou  not  come  with  me 
from  the  Rents  of  Tattyboys  to  All  the  Russias  ? 
For 'here  thou  wouldst  find,  not  one  or  two,  but 
millions  of  men,  all  with  their  coats  buttoned  up  to 
here. 

I  said  ONE  of  Prince  Bouillabaissoff's  villages,  for 
the  prince  is  a  proprietor  on  a  large  scale,  and  owns 
nearly  a  dozen,  containing  in  all  some  twenty  hun- 
dred douscha  (souls)  or  serfs.  But  our  Grand  Scud 
principle  is  vindicated  when  we  diverge  from  the 
marshes  and  the  baked  clods  into  the  commence- 


224  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

ment  of  a  smooth  well-kept  road,  and  learn  from 
Petr'  Petrovitch,  whom  we  have  hitherto  foreborne 
interrogating,  that  we  are  approaching  the  village  of 
M.  de  Katorichassoff. 

The  good  Russian  roads  are  oases  between  deserts. 
In  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  seigneur's  resi- 
dence the  roads  are  beautifully  kept.  No  English 
park  avenue  could  surpass  them  in  neatness,  regu- 
larity, smoothness, — nay,  prettiness  and  cheerfulness. 
There  are  velvety  platebandes  of  greensward  by  the 
roadside,  and  graceful  poplars,  and  sometimes  elms. 
But  once  out  of  the  baron's  domains,  and  even  the 
outlying  parts  of  his  territory,  the  roads — high  and 
bye — become  the  pitiable  paths  of  travail  and  ways 
of  tribulation,  of  which  I  have  hinted  in  the  Czar's 
Highway.  There  is  a  humorous  fiction  that  the 
proprietors  of  the  soil  are  bound  to  keep  the  public 
roads  in  order,  and  another  legend — but  more  satir- 
ical than  humorous — that  the  government  pays  a 
certain  yearly  sum  for  the  well-keeping  of  the  roads. 
Government  money  is  an  ignis  fatuical  and  impal- 
pable thing  in  Russia.  You  may  pay,  but  you  do 
not  receive.  As  to  the  proprietors  they  will  see  the 
government  barbacued  before  they  will  do  any  thing 
they  are  not  absolutely  compelled  to  do  ;  and  the 
upshot  of  the  matter  is,  that  a  problem  something 
like  the  following  is  offered  for  solution.  If  two 
parties  are  bound  to  perform  a  contract  of  mutual 
service,  and  neither  party  performs  it,  which  party 
has  a  right  to  complain  ? 

M.  de  KatorichassofF,  however — or  rather  Herr 
Vandergutlers,  his  North  German  bourmister,  or 


THE   SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  225 

intendant,  for  the  noble  Barynn  is  no  resident  just 
now  (Hombourg,  roulette,  and  so  forth) — would  very 
soon  know  the  reason  why  all  the  roads  about  the 
seigneurial  village  were  not  kept  in  apple-pie  order. 
They  say  that  in  Tsarskoe-Selo  palace  gardens,  near 
Petersburg,  there  is  a  corporal  of  invalids  to  run 
after  every  stray  leaf  that  has  fallen  from  a  tree,  and 
a  police  officer  to  take  every  unauthorized  pebble  on 
the  gravel  walks  into  custody.  Without  going  so 
far  as  this,  it  is  certain  that  there  are  plenty  of  peas- 
ants mis  d  corvee,  that  is,  working  three  compulsory 
days'  labour  for  the  lord,  to  mend  and  trim  the 
roads,  clip  the  platebandes,  and  prune  the  trees ;  and 
the  result  is,  ultimately,  a  charmingly  umbrageous 
avenue  through  which  we  make  our  entrance  into 
Volnoi-Voloshtchok. 

Though  M.  de  K.  (you  will  excuse  the  rest  of  the 
name,  I  know)  has  only  one  village,  he  has  deter- 
mined to  do  every  thing  in  it  en  grand  seigneur. 
He  has  a  church  and  a  private  police-station,  and 
a  common  granary  for  corn ;  and,  wonder  of  won- 
ders !  he  has  a  wooden  watchtower  surmounted  by  a 
circular  iron  balcony,  and  with  the  customary  appa- 
ratus of  telegraphic  signals  in  case  of  fire.  As  you 
can  see  the  whole  of  the  village  of  Volnoi — its  one 
street,  the  chateau  of  the  Barynn,  and  the  mill  of 
Mestrophan-Kouprianoritch — at  one  glance,  stand- 
ing on  the  level  ground,  and  as  there  are  no  other 
buildings  for  ten  miles  round,  the  utility  of  a  watch- 
tower  does  not  seem  very  obvious.  Still,  let  us 
have  discipline,  or  die.  So  there  were  watchmen,  I 

suppose,  at  one  time  ;  but  the  balcony  is  tenantless 
10* 


226  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

now,  and  one  of  the  yellow  balls  is  in  a  position, 
according  to  the  telegraphic  code,  denoting  a  raging 
conflagration  somewhere.  There  is  nothing  on  fire, 
that  I  know  of,  except  the  sun.  Where  is  the  watch- 
man, too  ?  There  are  plenty  of  vigorous  old  men 
with  long  white  beards,  who  would  enact  to  the  life 
the  part  of  that  dreary  old  sentinel  in  Agamemnon 
the  King,  who,  in  default  of  fire,  or  water,  or  the 
enemy,  or  whatever  else  he  is  looking  out  for,  prog- 
nosticates such  dismal  things  about  Clytemnestra's 
goings  on  and  the  state  of  Greece  generally.  Why 
didn't  the  terrible  queen  kill  that  old  bore,  same  time 
she  murdered  her  husband  ?  He  has  been  prosing 
from  that  watchtower  going  on  three  thousand 
years.  There  seems  to  be  no  necessity,  either,  for 
the  watchtower  to  have  any  windows,  but  broken 
ones,  or  any  door  save  four  shameful  old  'planks 
hanging  by  one  wooden  hinge,  and  for  the  hot  sun 
to  glare  fiercely  through  crevices  in  the  walls  that 
have  not  been  made  by  the  wood  shrinking,  but  by 
the  absence  of  part  or  parcel  of  the  walls  themselves. 
Why  empty  balcony,  why  broken  windows,  why 
wooden  hinges,  why  one  hinge,  why  yawning  walls  ? 
This  :  the  lord  is  at  Hombourg  ( — actress  of  the 
Folies  Dramatiques — run  of  iU-luck  on  the  red,  and 
so  forth,)  and  Herr  Vandergutlers,  his  intendant's 
paramount  business  is  to  send  him  silver  roubles. 
More  silver  roubles,  and  yet  more  !  So  those  of  his 
serfs  who  pay  him  a  yearly  rent,  or  obrok,  have  had 
that  obrok  considerably  increased ;  and  those  who 
were  a  corvSe  have  been  compelled  to  go  upon 
obrok  ;  and  everybody,  man,  woman,  and  child, 


THE   SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  227 

patriarch  and  young  girl,  have  been  pinched,  pressed, 
screwed,  and  squeezed,  beaten,  harassed,  cozened, 
bullied,  driven,  and  dragged  by  the  North  German 
intendant  for  more  silver  roubles — more  silver  rou- 
bles still — for  M.  de  KatorichassofF,  at  Hombourg. 
There  the  man  who  deals  the  cards,  and  the  woman 
who  rouges  her  face,  divide  the  Russian  prince's 
roubles  between  them,  (a  simple  seigneur  here,  he 
is  Prince  Katorichassoff  at  Hombourg ;)  and  this  is 
why,  you  can  understand,  that  the  fire-engine  de- 
partment has  been  somewhat  neglected,  and  its 
operation  suspended  at  Volnoi-Voloschtchok.  As 
for  the  state  of  decay  into  which  the  building, 
though  barely  two  years  old,  is  falling,  that  is  easily 
accounted  for.  The  villagers  are  stealing  it  piece- 
meal. They  have  already  stolen  the  lower  part  of 
the  staircase,  and  thereby  have  been  too  clever  for 
themselves,  as  they  cannot  get  at  the  balcony,  which, 
being  of  real  iron,  must  make  their  mouths  water. 
The  hinges  were  originally  made  of  wood,  together 
with  all  the  clamps,  and  rivets,  and  bolts  employed 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  structure,  through  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  fact  patent  and  notorious,  that  iron  any- 
where within  his  reach  is  as  much  too  much  for  the 
frail  morality  of  a  Russian  peasant  as  of  a  South 
Sea  native.  He  will  steal  the  iron  tires  off  wheels  : 
he  will  (and  has  frequently)  stolen  the  chains  of  sus- 
pension bridges.  I  don't  think  he  would  object  to 
being  loaded  with  chains,  if  he  could  steal  and  sell 
his  fetters. 

On  domains  like  those  of  Prince  Bouillabaissoff, 
the  fire-engine  and  watch-tower  organization  is  not 


228  A   JOURNEY   DUE"  NORTH. 

a  weak-minded  caricature,  but  an  imposing  reality. 
And  the  importance  of  such  a  preventive  establish- 
ment can  with  difficulty  be  exaggerated.  Of  course, 
his  dwelling  being  of  wood,  and  easily  ignitable,  the 
Russian  is  incredibly  careless  with  combustibles.  It 
is  one  large  tinder-box.  This  is  why  fire-insurance 
companies  do  not  flourish  in  Russia.  It  may  cer- 
tainly be  asked  what  special  reason  the  Russian  has 
for  adopting  any  precautions  against  conflagrations. 
Many  reasons  he  certainly  has  not.  He  has  about 
the  same  personal  interest  in  his  house  as  a  pig 
might  have  in  his  stye.  His  breeder  must  give  him 
four  walls  to  live  in,  and  a  trough  to  eat  his  grains 
from, — but  he  may  be  driven  to  market  any  day, — 
he  may  be  pork  (and  well-scored  for  the  bakehouse) 
by  next  Wednesday  week.  Again,  his  house  is 
not  unlike  a  spider's  web, — easily  destroyed,  easily 
reconstructed.  The  housemaid's  broom,  or  the  de- 
stroying element, — it  is  all  the  same ;  a  little  saliva  to 
the  one,  and  a  few  logs  to  the  other,  and  the  spider 
and  the  moujik  are  at  work"  again.  You  don't  ask 
a  baby  to  mend  his  cradle.  When  it  is  past  service 
papa  goes  out  and  buys  him  a  new  one.  There  is 
this  paternal  relation  between  the  lord  and  the  serf, 
(besides  the  obvious  non-rod-sparing  to  avoid  the 
child-spoiling  one,)  that  the  former  is  to  a  certain 
extent  compelled  to  provide  for  the  material  wants 
of  his  big-bearded  bantling.  If  Ivan's  roof  be  burnt 
over  his  head,  the  lord  must  find  him  at  least  the 
materials  for  another  habitation  ;  if  the  harvests 
have  fallen  short,  or  an  epizootis  has  decimated  the 
country  side,  he  must  feed  them.  The  serf  tills  the 


THE    SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  229 

ground  for  his  lord,  but  he  must  have  seeds  given 
him  to  sow  with.  The  Russian  peasant  having 
absolutely  no  earthly  future  to  look  forward  to,  it  is 
but  reasonable  that  his  proprietor  should  supply  the 
exigent  demands  of  the  present  moment.  There  is 
no  absolute  right  of  existence  guaranteed ;  but  the 
master's  natural  interest  in  the  souls  he  possesses, 
having  means  sufficient  to  keep  their  bodies  alive 
withal,  obviously  prompts  him  to  keep  them  fed, 
and  housed,  and  clothed.  There  are  his  lands ; 
when  they  have  done  their  three  days'  work  for 
him,  they  may  raise  enough  corn  in  the  next  three 
days'  serivat  to  make  their  black  bread  with.  There 
are  his  hemp,  and  flax,  and  wool, — their  women  can 
spin,  themselves  can  weave  such  hodden  gray  as 
they  require  to  cover  their  nakedness.  There  are 
his  secular  woods  ;  they  may  cut  pine-logs  there  to 
make  their  huts.  As  regards  the  rigid  necessary, — 
the  bare  elements  of  food,  covering,  and  shelter, — 
the  nobility's  serfs  have  decidedly  the  same  advan- 
tage over  the  twenty  millions  or  so  of  crown  slaves 
(facetiously  termed  free  peasants)  as  Mr.  Legree's 
negroes  have  over  the  free-born  British  paupers  of 
Buckinghamshire,  or  Gloucestershire,  or — out  with 
it — St.  James's,  Westminster,  and  St.  George's, 
Hanover  Square.  In  a  crown  village,  in  a  time 
of  scarcity,  the  sufferings  of  the  free  peasants  are 
almost  incredibly  horrible.  Then  the  wretched  vil- 
lagers, after  having  eaten  their  dogs,  their  cats,  and 
the  leather  of  their  boots  ;  after  being  seen  scraping 
together  handfuls  of  vermin  to  devour ;  after  going 
out  into  the  woods,  and  gnawing  the  bark  off  the 


230  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

trees ;  after  swallowing  clay  and  weeds  to  deceive 
their  stomachs;  after  lying  in  wait,  with  agonized 
wistfulness,  for  one  solitary  traveller  to  whom  they 
can  lift  their  hands  to  beg  alms ;  after  having  under- 
gone all  this,  they  go  out  from  their  famine-stricken 
houses  into  the  open  fields  and  waste  places,  and 
those  that  are  sickening  build  a  kind  of  tilt  awning- 
hut  with  bent  twigs  covered  with  rags,  over  those 
that  are  sick,  and  they  rot  first  and  die  afterwards. 
In  famines  such  as  these,  the  people  turn  black,  like 
negroes ;  whole  families  go  naked ;  and  though,  poor 
wretches,  they  would  steal  the  nails  from  horses' 
shoes,  the  crank  and  staple  from  a  gibbet,  or  the 
trepanning  from  a  man's  scull,  they  refrain  won- 
drously  from  cannibalism,  from  mutual  violence, 
and  from  any  thing  like  organized  depredations  on 
the  highway  ; — they  fear  the  Czar  and  the  police  to 
the  last  gasp.  Nor,  do  I  conscientiously  believe,  if 
the  richest  shrines  of  the  richest  Sabors  of  all  Peters- 
burg, Moscow,  Kieff,  and  Novgorod — heavy  with 
gold  and  silver,  and  blazing  with  costly  jewels — 
were  to  be  set  up  in  the  midst  of  their  breadless, 
kopeckless,  village,  would  they  abstract  one  jewelled 
knob  from  the  crozier  of  a  saint,  one  tinselled  ray 
from  the  aureole  of  the  Panagia.  At  last,  when 
many  have  died,  and  many  more  are  dying,  a  stifled 
wail,  which  has  penetrated  with  much  difficulty 
through  the  official  cotton-stuffed  ears  of  district  po- 
lice auditoria,  district  chambers  of  domains,  military 
chiefs  of  governments,  and  imperial  chancelleries, 
without  number,  comes  soughing  into  the  private 
cabinet  of  the  Czar  at  the  Winter  Palace  or  Peter- 


THE    SLOBODA.      A   RUSSIAN   VILLAGE.  231 

hoff.  The  Empress,  good  soul,  sheds  tears  when  she 
hears  of  the  dreadful  sufferings  of  the  poor  people 
so  many  hundred  versts  off.  The  imperial  children, 
I  have  no  doubt,  wonder  why,  if  the  peasants  have 
no  bread  to  eat,  they  don't  take  to  plum-cake ;  the 
emperor  is  affected,  but  goes  to  work ;  issues  an 
oukase  ;  certain  sums  from  the  imperial  cassette  are 
munificently  affected  to  the  relief  of  the  most  press- 
ing necessities.  Do  you  know,  my  reader,  that 
long  months  elapse  before  the  imperial  alms  reach 
their  wretched  objects  ?  do  you  know  that  the  im- 
perial bounty  is  bandied — all  in  strict  accordance 
with  official  formality,  of  the  like  of  which  I  have 
heard  something  nearer  home — from  department  to 
department — from  hand  to  hand  ;  and  that  to  each 
set  of  greasy  fingers,  belonging  to  scoundrels  in  gold 
lace,  and  rogues  with  stars  and  crosses,  and  knaves 
of  hereditary  nobility,  there  sticks  a  certain  percent- 
age on  the  sum  originally  allocated?  The  Czar 
gives,  and  gives  generously.  The  Tchinn  lick,  and- 
mumble,  and  paw  the  precious  dole,  and  when,  at 
last,  it  reaches  its  rightful  recipients,  it  is  reduced  to 
a  hundredth  of  its  size.  Do  you  know  one  of  the 
chief  proverbs  appertaining  and  peculiar  to  Russian 
serfdom  ? — it  is  this — "  Heaven  is  too  high,  the  Czar 
is  too  far  off."  To  whom  are  the  miserable  crea- 
tures to  cry  ?  To  Mumbo-Jumbovitch  their  priest, 
who  is  an  ignorant  and  deboshed  dolt,  generally 
fuddled  with  kvass,  who  will  tell  them  to  kiss  St. 
Nicholas's  great  toe  ?  To  the  nearest  police-mayor, 
who  will  give  them  fifty  blows  with  a  stick,  if  they 
are  troublesome,  and  send  them  about  their  busi- 


232  A   JOUKNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

ness  ?  To  the  Czar,  who  is  so  far  off,  morally  and 
physically  ?  To  Heaven  ?  Such  famines  as  these 
have  been  in  crown  villages,  on  the  great  chaussee 
road  from  Petersburg  to  Moscow.  Such  famines 
have  been,  to  our  shame  be  it  said,  in  our  own 
free,  enlightened,  and  prosperous  United  Kingdom, 
within  these  dozen  years.  But  I  am  not  ashamed — 
no,  pot-and-kettle  philosophers,  sympathizers  with 
the  oppressed  Hindoo — no,  mote-and-beam  logicians 
full  of  condolence  with  the  enslaved  Irishman — I  am 
not  ashamed  to  talk  of  famines  in  Russia,  because 
there  have  been  famines  in  Skibbereen,  and  Orkney, 
and  Shetland.  The  famine-stricken  people  may  have 
been  neglected,  oppressed,  wronged,  by  stupid  and 
wicked  rulers  ;  but  I  am  not  ashamed — I  am  rather 
proud  to  remember  the  burst  of  sympathy  elicited 
from  the  breasts  of  millions  among  us,  at  the  first 
recital  of  the  sufferings  of  their  brethren, — the  stren- 
uous exertions  made  by  citizens  of  every  class  and 
every  creed  to  raise  and  send  immediate  succour  to 
those  who  were  in  want.  We  commit  great  errors 
as  a  nation,  but  we  repair  them  nobly ;  and  I  think 
we  ought  no  more  to  wince  at  being  reminded  of 
our  former  backslidings,  or  refrain  from  denouncing 
and  redressing  wrongs  wherever  they  exist,  because, 
in  the  old  time  we  have  done  wrongfully  ourselves, 
than  we  ought  to  go  in  sackcloth,  in  ashes,  because 
Richard  the  Third  murdered  his  nephews,  or  abstain 
from  the  repression  of  cannibalism  in  New  Zealand, 
because  our  Druidical  ancestors  burnt  human  beings 
alive  in  wicker  cages.* 

*  The  impressions  hereabove  set  down  respecting  famine,  and, 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  233 

XI. 

A   COUNTRY   HOUSE. 

I  WANT  to  say  a  word  more  about  Ireland,  not 
argumentatively,  but  as  an  illustration.  I  should 
have  been  dishonest  in  blinking  Skibbereen  ;  the 
more  so,  as  in  all  the  narratives  I  have  heard  of  the 
social  characteristics  of  these  appalling  visitations,  I 
could  not  help  being  struck  with  their  grim  and 
minute  similitude  to  some  features  of  the  Irish 
famine  that  came  within  my  own  knowledge  at  the 
time.  Some  of  the  coincidences  were  extraordi- 
nary. The  patience  of  the  people.  Their  swarthi- 
ness  of  hue  from  inanition.  Their  patience  and 
meekness  during  unexampled  agony;  and,  above  all, 

indeed,  most  of  the  information  on  the  subject  of  the  condition  of 
the  Russian  peasantry  which  may  hereafter  be  found  in  these 
pages,  are  derived,  not  from  official  documents,  not  even  from 
the  trustworthy  pages  of  M.  de  Haxthausen,  who  though  profess- 
edly favourable  to  the  Russian  government,  and  painting,  as  far 
as  he  can,  couleur  de  rose,  lets  out  some  very  ugly  truths  occasion- 
ally ;  but  from  repeated  conversations  I  have  held  with  Russian 
gentlemen,  some  high  in  office  in  ministerial  departments,  some 
men  of  scientific  attainments,  some  university  students,  some  mili- 
tary officers.  All  the  facts  I  have  rested  my  remarks  upon  have 
been  told  me  with  a  calm,  complacently-indifferent  air,  over  tum- 
blers of  tea,  and  paper  cigarettes,  and  usually  accompanied  by  a 
remark  of  c'est  comme  pa.  And  I  think  I  kept  my  eyes  sufficiently 
wide  open  during  my  stay,  and  was  pretty  well  able  to  judge 
when  my  interlocutors  were  lying,  and  when  they  were  telling 
the  truth. 


234  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

their  nakedness.  To  be  naked  and  a-hungered 
would  seem  to  be  natural — the  hungry  man  selling 
his  clothes  to  buy  bread  ;  but  these  people,  Irish  and 
Russian,  went  naked  when  they  had  plenty  of  rags, 
unsalable,  but  warmth-containing.  There  seem  to 
be  certain  extreme  stages  of  human  misery,  in  which 
a  man  can  no  longer  abide  his  garments.  I  have  a 
curious  remembrance  of  being  told  by  a  relative, 
who  was  in  the  famine-stricken  districts  in  eighteen 
forty-seven,  that,  once  losing  his  way  over  a  moun- 
tain, he  entered  a  cabin  to  inquire  the  proper  road, 
and  there  found  seven  people  of  both  sexes,  children 
and  adults,  crouching  round  an  empty  saucepan, 
and  all  as  bare  as  robins !  The  eldest  girl,  who 
volunteered  to  show  him  the  straight  road,  was  mod- 
est as  Irish  girls  are  proud  to  be,  and  as  she  rose  to 
escort  him,  clapped  a  wooden  bowl  over  her  shoul- 
der, as  if  it  had  been  the  expansive  cloak  of  the 
demon  page  whom  we  read  of  in  the  Percy  Reliques. 
I  have  been  thinking  of  all  these  things  and  a 
great  many  more  over  tea  and  tobacco  in  the  Star- 
osta's  house  in  M.  de  Katorichassoff's  village. 
There  Alexis  and  I  are  comfortably  seated  during 
the  noontide  heats.  The  Starosta's  daughter  would 
have  washed  our  feet  for  us,  as  Penelope's  hand- 
maidens did  for  Ulysses,  or  Fergus  Maclvor's  duin- 
hie  wassals  for  Waverley,  if  we  had  had  any  incli- 
nation that  way.  Perhaps  I  had  corns;  perhaps 
Alexis,  already  becoming  Russianized,  had,  like 
many  of  his  patent  leather-booted  countrymen,  no 
stockings  on.  It  is  certain  that  we  did  not  avail 
ourselves  of  the  footbath.  The  Starosta  has  in- 


A   COUNTRY  HOUSE.  235 

formed  us  several  times,  and  with  as  many  profound 
bows,  that  his  house  no  longer  belongs  to  him,  but 
that  it,  its  contents,  himself,  his  children  and  grand- 
children, are  ours,  and  at  the  absolute  disposal  of 
our  excellencies.  Excellencies !  By  the  long-winded 
multisyllabic,  but  mellifluous  epithets  he  has  be- 
stowed on  Alexis  he  must  have  called  him  his 
majesty,  his  coruscation,  his  scintillation,  his  milky- 
way,  by  this  time.  The  Russians  are  great  pro- 
ficients in  low  bows,  and  to  bien  savoir  tirer  la 
reverence  is  considered  a  superlative  accomplish- 
ment. A  distinguished  Professor  of  Natural  His- 
tory attached  to  the  University  of  Moscow — a  great 
savant  and  a  very  taciturn  man — once  remarked  to 
me  gravely,  that  his  brother  Waldemar  made  the 
best  bow  of  any  boyard  in  the  government  of  Sim- 
bersk,  and  added :  "  Ce  garpon  Id  fera  son  chemin  " 
— and  indeed  this  is  a  country  where,  by  dint  of 
continuous  and  assiduous  bowing,  you  may  make 
surprising  way  in  fortune  and  dignity.  If  you  will 
bow  low  enough  you  may  be  sure  to  rise  high  in  the 
Tchinn ;  and  if  you  don't  mind  grovelling  a  little  on 
your  stomach,  and  swallowing  a  little  dust,  there  is 
no  knowing  to  what  imperial  employment  you  may 
aspire.  I  think  that  Alexis  has  a  secret  admiration 
and  envy  of  Genghis  Khan,  owing  to  the  profoundly 
graceful  bows  that  Tartar  chieftain  is  so  frequently 
making.  I  don't  mind  low  bows.  Perhaps  if  I 
knew  an  English  duke  I  should  be  inclined  to  make 
him  very  low  bows  myself— at  all  events,  I  have 
compatriots  who  would ;  but  it  is  inexpressibly  pain- 
ful and  disgusting  to  a  western  traveller  in  Russia, 


236  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

when  he  happens  to  be  on  a  visit  at  a  gentleman's 
country  house,  to  see  stalwart  bearded  men  posi- 
tively falling  down  and  worshipping  some  scrubby 
young  seigneur.  If  a  peasant  has  the  slightest 
favour  to  ask  of  his  lord — the  promotion  of  his  wife, 
for  instance,  from  the  scullery  to  the  fine-linen  laun- 
dry— he  begins  his  suit  by  falling  plump  on  his 
knees,  and  touching  the  earth  with  his  forehead. 
Even  in  Petersburg  where  Nous  Autres  do  not  like 
to  show  the  slave-owner's  element  more  than  they 
can  help,  I  have  seen  a  sprightly  young  seigneur 
keep  a  gray-haired  servitor  full  ten  minutes  on  his 
knees  before  him  lighting  his  pipe — cheerfully  call- 
ing him  swinia  and  durac  (pig  and  fool)  meanwhile, 
and  playfully  chucking  him  under  the  chin  with  the 
toe  of  his  Kasan  boot. 

We  have  refused  the  refreshment  of  vitchina,  or 
dried  pork,  piroga,  or  meat  pies,  and  ogourtzhoff,  or 
salted  cucumbers  ;  but  we  have  cheerfully  accepted 
the  offer  of  a  samovar,  which,  huge,  brazen,  and 
battered,  glowers  in  the  midst  of  the  table  like  the 
giant  helmet  in  the  Castle  of  Otranto.  We  have 
our  own  tea  and  cups  in  the  tin  chest,  but  the  Star- 
osta  won't  hear  of  our  using  either.  He  has  tea — 
and  capital  tea  it  is — rather  like  tobacco  in  colour, 
and  tasting  slightly  as  if  it  had  been  kept  in  a  can- 
ister in  Mr.  Atkinson  the  perfumer's  shop ;  besides 
this,  he  has,  not  tumblers  for  us  to  drink  our  tea 
from,  but  some  articles  he  has  the  greatest  pride 
and  joy  in  producing — porcelansky,  he  calls  them, 
in  a  voice  quavering  with  emotion,  as  he  takes  them 
out  of  the  chest  containing  his  valuables.  The  por- 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  237 

celansky  consists  of  two  very  fair  china  tea-cups, 
one  of  them  minus  a  handle,  but  the  loss  supplied 
with  a  neat  curve  of  twisted  iron  wire,  and  both 
duly  set  in  saucers.  One  saucer  is  indubitable 
china ;  it  does  not  match  the  cup  in  size  or  pattern, 
certainly,  but  let  that  pass ;  the  other  is — the  cover 
of  one  of  those  shallow  earthenware  pots  in  which 
preserved  meats  and  anchovy  paste  are  sold !  I 
turn  the  familiar  lid  upside  down,  and  there  my 
eyes  are  gladdened  with  the  sight  of  a  coloured 
engraving  burnt  into  the  clay — the  interior  of 
Shakspeare's  house  at  Stratford-upon-Avon !  My 
thoughts  immediately  revert  to  Mr.  Quain's  oyster- 
shop  in  the  Haymarket,  London,  and  I  burst  out 
laughing,  to  the  amazement  and  abashment  of  the 
Starosta,  who,  thinking  I  am  ridiculing  him  for 
having  placed  his  saucer  with  the  handsome  part 
underneath,  hastens  to  explain  to  Alexis  that  the 
cup  won't  maintain  its  position  unless  the  saucer  is 
turned  upside  down,  expressing  his  regret,  as  the 
picture,  which  he  assumes  to  be  a  view  of  the 
Dvoretz  Londoni-Gorod,  or  Palace  of  the  City  of 
London,  is  dolgo  harasho  (very  handsome  indeed). 
Alexis,  it  is  needless  to  say,  interprets  all  this  ;  for 
my  Russ  is  of  the  very  weakest,  as  yet.  Yet  I 
cannot  help  a  slight  suspicion  that  my  young  friend's 
Moscov  is  not  of  the  most  powerful  description,  and 
that  he  makes  very  free  translations  of  the  Starosta's 
discourse  for  my  benefit,  and  that  like  the  dragoman 
in  Eothen,  he  renders  such  a  speech  as  "  Your 
mightinesses  are  welcome ;  most  blessed  among 
hours  is  this,  the  hour  of  his  coming,"  by  "  The  old 


238  .A   JOURNEY   DUE   N011TII. 

fellow  is  paying  us  a  lot  of  compliments.  We  are 
welcome  enough,  that  is  certain."  The  Starosta 
never  saw  Alexis  before,  but  he  has  known  the 
caleche  for  years,  and  he  knows  that  the  lad's  senior 
aunt  is  the  Baronessa  Bigwigitsin,  and  if  the  Russo- 
American  chose  to  eat  him  out  of  house  and  home, 
the  Starosta  would  bow  lower  than  ever,  so  near- 
neighbourly  is  he,  and  such  an  unfeigned  and  disin- 
terested attachment  has  he  for  the  juvenile  aris- 
tocracy. For,  the  Russian  peasant,  who  is  always 
burning  a  lamp  before  the  shrine  of  his  saint, 
astutely  thinks  that  there  is  no  harm  in  burning  a 
candle  to  the  other  power,  too :  so  he  worships  his 
seigneur,  who  is  the  very  devil  to  him. 

I  have  had  two  tumblers  of  tea ;  and  by  this  time 
I  have  taken  stock  of  the  Starosta's  house.  It  is 
the  best  in  the  village  of  Volnoi',  and  I  should  think 
the  Starosta  must  have  been  a  thrifty  old  gentleman, 
and  must  be  by  this  time,  pretty  well  to  do  in  the 
world.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  from  Alexis,  however,  that 
our  venerable  friend  declares  that  he  has  not  a  co- 
peck in  the  world,  and  that  he  and  his  family  are 
"  whistling  in  their  fist?"  for  hunger.  "  He  is  a 
liar,"  Alexis  says,  unaffectedly.  "  They  are  all  liars." 
The  Starosta's  dwelling,  though,  does  not  offer 
many  signs  of  penury  or  distress.  Here  is  the  in- 
ventory. 

There  is  but  one  room  on  the  ground-floor :  a 
sufficiently  vast  apartment,  of  which  the  walls  are  of 
logs  in  all  their  native  roundness,  and  the  ceiling 
also  of  logs,  but  on  which,  to  be  quite  genteel,  some 
imperfect  attempts  at  squaring  have  been  made. 


A    COUNTRY   HOUSE.  289 

There  is  not  a  glimpse  of  white-washing,  painting 
or  paper-hanging  to  be  seen.  The  great  Russian 
painter  and  decorator,  Dirtoff,  has  taken  the  cham- 
ber in  hand,  and  has  toned  down  walls,  and  ceiling, 
and  flooring  to  one  agreeable  dingy  gray.  There  is 
not  much  dust  about ;  no  great  litter,  where  all  is 
litter  ;  not  over-many  cobwebs  in  the  corners.  The 
dirt  is  concrete.  It  is  part  of  the  party  walls ;  and 
I  think  that  a  thoroughly  good  scrubbing  would  send 
the  Starosta's  house  tumbling  about  his  ears.  There 
are  two  windows  to  the  room ;  one  is  a  show  win- 
dow— a  large  aperture,  filled  with  a  peculiar  dull, 
gray,  sheenless  glass.  The  panes  are  so  gently  and 
uniformly  darkened  with  dirt,  that  the  window  serves 
much  more  to  prevent  impertinent  wayfarers  from 
looking  in,  than  to  assist  the  inmates  of  the  mansion 
in  looking  out.  The  second  window  is  a  much 
smaller  casement,  cut  apparently  at  random  high  up 
in  the  wall,  and  close  to  the  ceiling,  and  of  no  par- 
ticular shape.  Its  panes  are  filled  with  something, 
but  what  that  something  may  be  I  am  unable  to  de- 
termine; not  glass  for  a  certainty,  for  the  panes 
bulge  inward,  and  some  flap  idly  to  and  fro  in  the 
hot  summer  wind,  which,  like  a  restless  dog,  is  wag- 
ging its  tail  in  the  sun  outside; — rags,  perhaps,  paper 
it  may  be,  dried  fish-skins — a  favourite  preparation 
for  glazing  windows — very  likely.  Whatever  it  be, 
it  produces  a  very  unwholesome-looking  semi-trans- 
parency ;  and  big  black  spiders,  tarrakans,  and  other 
ogglesome  insects,  crawl  over  its  jaundiced  field,  like 
hideous  ombres  chinoises.  One  end  of  the  apart- 
ment is  partitioned  off  by  a  raw-wooden  screen, 


240  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

some  six  feet  in  height;  but  whether  that  be  the 
family  bed-chamber  or  the  family  pigsty  I  am  quite 
at  a  loss  to  say.  The  former  hypothesis  is  scarcely 
tenable,  inasmuch  as  beneath  the  image  of  the  saint 
there  is  a  sort  of  wooden  pit,  half  above  ground  and 
half  under  it — half  a  sarcophagus  and  half  a  ditch 
— which  from  a  mighty  bolster — that  gigantic  saus- 
age like  sack  of  black  leather  must  be  a  bolster,  for 
I  can  see  the  oleaginous  marks  on  it  where  heads 
have  lain — and  a  counterpane  bariole  in  so  many 
stripes  and  counterstripes  of  different  colours  that  it 
looks  like  the  union-jack,  I  conjecture  to  be  the 
Starosta's  family  bed.  His  summer  bed,  of  course ; 
where  his  winter  bed  is  we  all  know — it  is  there  on 
the  top  of  the  long  stove,  where  the  heap  of  once 
white — now  black  with  dirt  and  grease — sheepskins 
are.  If  I  had  any  doubt  about  this  wooden  grave 
being  a  bed,  it  would  be  at  once  dispelled ;  first,  by 
the  sight  of  a  leg  covered  with  a  dusty  boot  which 
suddenly  surges  into  the  air  from  beneath  the  waves 
of  the  particoloured  counterpane  like  the  mast  of  a 
wrecked  vessel ;  and  ultimately  by  a  head  dusty  and 
dishevelled  as  to  its  hair,  and  bright  crimson  as  to 
its  face,  which  bobs  up  to  the  surface,  glimmers  for 
a  moment,  and  then  disappears — to  continue  the 
nautical  simile — like  the  revolving  pharos  of  the 
Kish  Lightship.  From  a  hiccup,  too,  and  a  grunt, 
I  am  further  enabled  to  conjecture  that  there  must 
be  somebody  in  the  bed ;  and  from  some  suppressed 
whisperings,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  there  are 
some  small  matters  in  the  way  of  children  down 
somewhere  in  the  vast  depths  of  this  Russian  Great 


A   COUNTRY  HOUSE.  241 

Bed  of  Ware.  On  the  latter  subject  I  am  not  en- 
lightened; but  on  the  former  my  mind  is  set  at  rest 
by  the  statement  volunteered  by  the  Starosta,  that 
his  eldest  grandson  Sophron  is  lying  down  there, 
"  as  drunk  as  oil " — whatever  that  state  of  intoxica- 
tion may  be.  He  went  out  this  morning,  it  appears, 
to  the  Seignorial  Kontova,  or  steward's  office,  with 
a  little  present  to  the  Alemansky-Bourmister,  or 
German  Intendant  of  the  Barynn,  and  on  Gospodin 
Vandergutler's  deigning  to  give  Sophron  some  green 
wine,  or  vodki,  Sophron  deigned  to  drink  thereof,  till 
he  found  himself,  or  was  found,  in  the  aforesaid  oily 
state  of  drunkenness.  I  should  say  myself,  that 
Sophron  is  more  what  may  be  termed  "dumb 
drunk ; "  for,  on  his  grandfather  seizing  him  by  the 
hair  of  his  head  on  one  of  its  visits  to  the  surface, 
and  rating  him  in  most  abusive  Russ,  Sophron 
makes  superhuman  efforts  «to  reply,  but  can  get  no 
further  than  an  incoherent  and  inarticulate  gabble  ; 
after  which,  leaving  some  of  his  hair  behind  like 
seaweed,  he  dives  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  coun- 
terpane ocean — again  to  confer,  I  suppose,  with  his 
little  brothers  and  sisters,  or  with  Neptune,  or  the 
Nereides,  or  the  Great  Sea  Serpent.  "  The  ape  and 
pig,"  says  the  vexed  Starosta,  "  threw  himself  into 
the  bed  while  I  was  at  Mestrophan's  mill.  I  could 
sober  him  in  a  moment  with  a  bucket  of  water,  but 
your  excellencies  will  understand  that  I  do  not  want 
to  spoil  the  pastyel,  (or  bed,)  which  is  of  great  civ- 
lation,  (civilization,)  and  came  from  Moscow,  where 
my  eldest  son  Dmitri  has  been  an  Ischvostchik  Mac- 
ter  for  twenty  years,  paying  one  hundred  and  eighty 
11 


242  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

silver  roubles  yearly  to  his  lord  and  ours,  the  Barynn 
Vacil-Apollodorovitch,  (M.  de  K.)  and  owning  him- 
self fourteen  droschkies  with  the  irhorses."  Appar- 
ently fearing  that  he  had  let  the  cat  somewhat  out 
of  the  money-bag  in  alluding  to  the  prosperous  con- 
dition of  his  son  Dmitri,  the  Starosta  hastened  to 
assure  Alexis  that  the  obrok  (or  yearly  slave-rent) 
was  a  frightfully  hard  thing  for  a  poor  Christianin 
to  pay,  and  that  what  with  that  and  the  police  and 
the  government  dues,  his  poor  Dmitri  had  nothing 
to  feed  or  clothe  his  children  with.  "  This  is  his 
son,"  he  adds,  pointing  to  the  part  of  the  counter- 
pane where  the  oily  drunkard  had  last  foundered 
with  all  hands,  and  his  cargo  of  green  wine  on 
board :  "judge  what  we  are  able  to  do  with  such  a 
cow's-nephew  as  this  on  our  hands !  However,  if 
your  excellencies  will  deign  to  pardon  me,  I  will 
soon  rid  you  of  this  Turk's-brother's  presence."  I 
don't  know  what  Alexis  answers  to  this  harangue, 
but  I  hasten  to  assure  the  Starosta  with  much  -ges- 
ticulation, and  many  harostros  and  nitchevos,  (all 
right  and  never  mind,)  that  I  have  not  the  slightest 
objection  to  the  drunken  man  in  the  bed,  and,  as  he 
is  quite  dumb,  that  I  rather  liked  his  revolving  light- 
house appearance  than  otherwise.  The  Starosta, 
however,  apparently  convinced  that  he  or  Sophron 
must  be  sinning  against  etiquette  in  some  way  or 
other,  makes  a  last  desperate  plunge  after  that  ship- 
wrecked convivialist.  He  brings  him  to  the  shore 
after  much  puffing  and  blowing,  and  rolls  or  drags 
his  long  body  across  the  floor  and  out  at  the  front 
door,  where,  from  some  dull  heavy  sounds,  and  a  ter- 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  243 

rific  howling,  I  presume  that  he  is  correcting  his 
grandson  with  a  joint-stool,  or  a  log  of  wood,  or  a 
crowbar,  or  a  hatchet,  or  some  switch-like  trifle  of  that 
description.  Then  I  hear  the  slush  of  the  proposed 
bucket  of  water.  The  Starosta  comes  in,  and  reapolo- 
gizes  to  Alexis  ;  and  when  Sophron  rejoins  us,  which 
he  does  in  about  ten  minutes  to  fill  the  samovar,  he 
is,  though  still  very  damp  and  somewhat  tangled 
about  the  hair,  and  purply-streaked  about  the  face, 
as  grave,  sober,  and  likely  a  young  Russian  as  ever 
wore  a  red  shirt  and  made  beautiful  bows. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  image  of  the  saint.  It  is 
here  that  the  Starosta's  commercial  secret  oozes  out. 
It  is  here  that  the  paucity  of  copecks,  and  the  sibi- 
lation  in  the  fists  for  hunger  becomes  notorious  as 
airy  fabrications.  Like  every  Russian  peasant  shop- 
keeper merchant — from  the  miserable  moujik  of  a 
crown-village  to  the  merchant  of  the  first  guild  with 
his  millions  of  roubles — Nicolai  latchkoff,  the  Sta- 
rosta's pride  and  pleasure  is  to  have  a  joss  in  his 
house,  as  handsome  as  ever  he  can  afford  it  to  be. 
And  a  brave  St.  Nicholas  he  has.  The  picture  it- 
self is  simply  hideous — a  paralytic  saint  with  an 
enormous  aureole,  like  a  straw  hat,  sitting  in  a  most 
uncomfortable  attitude  upon  a  series  of  cream- 
coloured  clouds  in  regular  tiers,  like  the  wig  of  the 
Lord  Mayor's  coachman.  It  is  painted,  or  rather 
daubed,  in  the  most  glaring  and  coarsest  oil-colours ; 
but  the  aureole  above  the  saint's  head  is  formed  of 
metallic  rays  of  a  certain  dull,  yellow,  Guinea-coast 
like  appearance,  that  make  me  certain — though  the 
Starosta  would  probably  call  St.  Nicholas  himself  to 


244  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

witness  that  the  contrary  was  the  fact — that  these 
rays  are  of  pure  gold.  And  there  are  some  rings  on 
St.  Nicholas's  fingers,  and  some  stars  on  his  alb  and 
rochet,  and  a  great  bulb  on  his  pastoral  crook,  that 
are  green,  and  white,  and  crimson,  and  glisten  very 
suspiciously.  I  have  an  idea  that  they  are  emeralds, 
and  carbuncles,  and  seed-pearls,  my  friend  Nicolai. 
I  know  the  massive,  chased,  and  embossed  lamp 
that  hangs,  always  kindled,  before  the  image,  to  be 
silver ;  the  picture  itself  is  covered  with  a  fair  wide 
sheet  of  plate-glass ;  the  whole  is  framed  in  rose- 
wood, carved  and  gilded  in  great  profusion ;  and  I 
should  not  at  all  wonder  if  the  original  cost  of  this 
image  to  the  soi-disant  impoverished  Starosta  had 
been  five  hundred  silver  roubles  at  the  very  least. 
St.  Nicholas  is  one  of  the  most  popular  and  most 
considered  of  the  Russian  saints,  and  the  late  Czar 
probably  owed  no  small  portion  of  his  immense  in- 
fluence to  the  fact  of  his  bearing  the  same  name  as 
that  saint  of  high  renown.  Touching  St.  Nicholas, 
there  is  a  ludicrous  tradition  current  among  the  Rus- 
sian peasantry  to  the  effect  that  he  once  had  a  theo- 
logical dispute  with  Martin  Luther,  and  that  they 
agreed  to  settle  it  by  a  walking-match.  It  was  to 
be  so  many  hundred  versts  up  a  mountain,  and 
neither  party  was  to  have  any  assistance  beyond  a 
stout  walking-staff.  For  once  the  Protestant  cham- 
pion was  victorious,  for  St.  Nicholas  was  thoroughly 
blown  before  he  had  accomplished  half  the  journey. 
The  detested  heretic  came  back  triumphant,  but 
with  empty  hands.  "  Where's  your  walking-stick, 
dog's '  son  ?  "  cried  the  good  St.  Nicholas.  "  Ant' 


A   COUNTRY  HOUSE.  245 

please  you,  I  ate  it,"  answered  his  opponent.  The 
wary  Doctor  Martin  Luther  had  had  a  walking-stick 
constructed  of  good  black-puddings  twisted  together, 
and  had  eaten  as  he  walked — the  creature  comforts 
giving  him  such  bodily  strength  that  he  had  easily 
overcome  his  antagonist. 

The  large  ground-floor  apartment,  as  it  may  be 
called,  though  it  is  raised  somewhat  above  the  level 
of  the  soil,  as  you  shall  hear  presently,  is  called  the 
Balschoi-Isba,  or  Big  Room;  and  sometimes,  on 
the  eternal  lucus  a  non  lucendo,  however  sombre  it 
may  be,  the  Beleeia-Isba,  or  Chamber  of  Light. 
The  space  at  the  end,  partitioned  off  like  a  church- 
warden's pew,  is  considered  as  strictly  private, — 
there  is  no  admittance  except  on  business.  When 
I  say  private,  I  mean,  of  course,  to  persons  of  the 
peasant's  own  degree ;  the  shaven-chins — by  which 
title  the  hirsute  moujiks  sometimes  designate  those 
whose  nobility,  official  standing,  military  employ- 
ment, or  foreign  extraction,  entitle  them  to  go  beard- 
less— enter  where  they  please,  and  do  what  they 
please,  when  they  deign  to  enter  a  peasant's  house. 
(And  here  a  parenthesis  respecting  beards.  One  of 
the  last  items  of  advice  volunteered  to  me  by  a  very 
dear  friend,  just  previous  to  leaving  England  for 
Russia,  was  to  let  my  beard  grow.  I  should  find  it 
so  comfortable  in  travelling,  he  said.  I  had  all  the 
wish,  though  perhaps  not  the  power,  to  effect  this 
desirable  consummation  ;  but  I  very  soon  found,  on 
my  arrival  at  St.  Petersburg,  that  if  I  wanted  to  be 
waited  on  with  promptitude  in  hotels,  spoken  to 
with  civility  by  police-officers,  or  received  with  po- 


246  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

liteness  in  society,  I  must  go  with  a  smoothly-shaven 
chin.  Moustaches  were  generally  patronized,  whis- 
kers tolerated  ;  but  a  beard — the  nasty  moujiks  wore 
beards  !  The  only  person  moving  in  elevated  Rus- 
sian society,  six  months  ago,  who  ventured  to  set 
the  aristocratic  squeamishness  as  to  hairy  chins  at  de- 
fiance, was  the  American  minister,  who  was  bearded 
like  the  pard.  Then,  in  July,  came  out  Lord  Wode- 
house,  our  ambassador,  also  wearing  a  beard  of  re- 
spectable dimensions ;  and  the  enormous  influx  of 
strangers  into  Moscow  at  the  coronation  fetes,  and 
the  cosmopolitan  variety  of  aristocratic  beards  wag- 
ged thereat,  must  by  this  time  have  familiarized  the 
Russians  with  the  sight  of  hairy  chins  unassociated 
with  sheepskin  coats  and  baggy  breeches.) 

Why  "  deign "  to  enter  ?  you  may  ask.  Why 
deign  to  do  this  or  that  ?  For  I  am  conscious  of 
having  repeated  the  locution  with  considerable  fre- 
quency. The  fact  is,  that  the  Russian  peasant  does 
not  say  of  his  superior — and  especially  of  his  lord — 
that  he  eats,  or  drinks,  or  sleeps  ;  but  that  he  deigns 
to  taste  something;  that  he  deigns  to  moisten  his 
lips ;  that  he  deigns  to  take  some  repose.  These 
words — he  deigns — become  at  last  so  natural  to  the 
serf  in  speaking  of  his  master,  that  it  is  anything 
but  rare  to  hear  from  his  mouth  such  phrases  as 
these :  "  The  Barynn  deigned  to  have  the  measles. 
His  excellency  deigned  to  tumble  down  stairs.  His 
lordship  deigned  to  die."  Isvolit  Kapout !  This,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  the  converse  to  the  historical  tournure 
de  phrase  of  Lord  Castlecomer's  mamma  when  his 
lordship's  tutor  happened  to  break  his  leg,  "  which 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  247 

was  so  very  inconvenient  to  my  Lord  Castlecomer." 
The  miserable  condition  of  the  souls  attached  to 
the  glebe  is  brought  to  your  mind  by  a  hundred 
slavish  proverbs  and  expressions.  Slavery  is  so  well 
organized,  and  so  saturates  the  social  system,  that 
the  very  dictionary  is  impregnated  with  slavish  words. 
A  people  philologically  servile,  and  whose  proverbs 
exhale  a  spirit  of  dog-like  obedience  and  hopeless 
resignation,  and  sometimes  abject  glorification  of 
despotism,  is  indeed  a  rarity.  The  miserable  Afri- 
cans, debased  as  they  have  been  by  centuries  of 
bondage,  have  no  such  popular  sayings,  if  I  remem- 
ber rightly,  as,  "  Cow-hide  am  good  for  niggers ; " 
"  Woolly  head  and  scored  back  always  go  together  ; " 
"  Sky  too  high  up,  Canada  too  far  off."  But  among 
the  Russian  peasants,  these  are  a  few  of  the  proverbs 
current  and  common :  "A  man  who  has  been  well 
beaten  is  worth  two  men  who  haven't  been  beaten." 
"  Five  hundred  blows  with  a  stick  will  make  a  good 
grenadier ;  a  thousand  a  dragoon ;  and  none  at  all 
a  captain."  "  'Tis  only  the  lazy  ones  who  don't  beat 
us."  Can  anything  be  more  horrible  than  this  tacit, 
shoulder-shrugging,  almost  smirking  acceptation  of 
the  stick  as  an  accomplished  fact, — of  the  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Stick  as  a  state  of  life  into  which  it 
has  pleased  God  to  call  them !  Again :  "  Heaven  is 
too  high  :  the  Czar  is  too  far  off."  This  is  simply 
Dante's  Lasciate  ogni  speranza  Russianized.  Again : 
« All  belongs  to  God  and  the  Czar."  «  Though 
against  thy  heart,  always  be  ready  to  do  what  thou 
art  ordered  to  do."  "  One  can  be  guilty  without 
guilt."  The  last  proverb,  with  the  preceding  one, 


248  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

imply  an  abnegation  of  the  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties of  manhood  altogether.  Its  application  justi- 
fies a  serf  in  robbing  and  murdering  at  the  command 
of  his  master ;  the  serf  is  guilty,  but  the  onus  of 
guilt  is  on  him  who  sets  him  on.  There  is  one  Rus- 
sian proverb  that  breathes  something  like  a  feeble 
consciousness  of  the  horrors  of  slavery,  and  the  cor- 
responding blessings  of  liberty.  "  The  bird  is  well 
enough  in  a  golden  cage,  but  he  is  better  on  a  green 
branch."  There  is  another  proverb  I  have  heard, 
couched  in  a  somewhat  similar  spirit :  "  The  la- 
bourer works  like  a  peasant,  [a  slave,]  but  he  sits 
down  to  table  like  a  lord."  This  is  too  politically 
and  economically  wise,  I  am  afraid,  to  be  genuine, 
and  has  probably  been  invented  ad  hoc,  and  placed 
in  the  mouth  of  the  moujik  by  some  anti-slavery 
philanthropists.  In  familiar  conversation  you  will 
sometimes  hear  a  Russian  say  :  "  Without  cutting 
my  head  off,  allow  me  to  say,"  &c.  This  is  a  pleas- 
ant reminiscence  of  the  formula  anciently  observed 
in  commencing  a  petition  to  the  Czar:  "  Do  not  or- 
der our  heads  to  be  cut  off,  O  mighty  Czar,  for  pre- 
suming to  address  you,  but  hear  us !  "  The  Russian 
equivalent  to  our  verb  "  to  petition  "  is  "  to  strike 
the  ground  with  one's  forehead."  And  the  "  Yes, 
sir,"  of  a  tchelovik,  or  eating-house  waiter,  when  you 
order  a  chop,  is  "  Sluschett,"  (I  hear  and  obey.) 
Will  any  man  believe  that  this  system  of  slavery, 
which  would  appear  to  be  the  growth  of  twenty  cen- 
turies, which  has  its  language,  and_proverbs,  and  folk- 
lore, is,  in  its  authorized  and  consolidated  form,  bare- 
ly two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old  ?  It  only  dates, 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  249 

legally,  from  the  reign  of  Boris  Godounoff.  But  I 
happened  to  speak  of  dictionaries.  Oyez,  oyez !  let 
all  men  know  that  the  imperial  Catherine,  second  of 
that  name,  and  of  imperishable  memory,  positively 
issued,  one  day— perhaps  in  an  access  of  capricious 
philanthropy,  and  after  receiving  a  letter  from 
D'Alembert — an  oukase  ordering  the  word  Slave 
to  be  for  ever  and  ever  erased  and  expunged  from 
the  imperial  dictionary.  The  philosophical  firm 
of  D'Alembert,  Diderot,  and  Co.,  made  a  great  deal 
of  this  at  the  time,  and  there  have  been  some 
attempts  to  make  more  of  it  since.  For  my  part,  I 
must  say  that  the  imperial  word  suppression  reminds 
me  very  much  of  the  manner  in  which  penitent  (in 
Pentonville)  housebreakers  speak  of  their  last  bur- 
glary (accompanied  by  violence)  as  their  culpable 
folly.  And  yet  this  wretched  people  seem  as  habit- 
uated and  to  the  manner  bora  to  slavery,  as  if  they 
had  been  serfs  from  the  time  when  it  was  said  to 
Ham,  "A  slave  and  a  servant  shalt  thou  be ;  "  and  as 
if  there  were  really  any  truth  in  the  grinning  theory 
of  the  German  traveller,  that  the  Russian  back  was 
organized  to  receive  blows,  and  that  his  nerves  are 
less  delicate  than  those  of  western  nations. 

The  reader  has  been  deigning,  I  am  afraid,  to 
wait  a  long  time  for  the  conclusion  of  the  inventory 
of  the  Starosta's  house  at  Volno'i ;  and  I  have  been 
in  truth  an  unconscionable  time  in  possession.  But 
the  Starosta's  house,  though  it  is  but  a  log  hut,  is 
full  of  pegs  to  hang  thoughts  upon  ;  though  I  must 
now  really  leave  the  pegs,  and  give  the  walls  a  turn. 
There  are  thereupon  some  more  works  of  art — secu- 
11* 


250  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

lar  ones — besides  the  ecclesiastical  triumph  of  the 
blessed  Saint  Nicholas.  In  poorer  cottages,  (if  the 
pretty,  homely,  ivy  and  honeysuckle  smelling  name 
of  cottage  can  be  applied  to  the  dreary  dull  dens  the 
Russians  live  in,)  these  lay  pictures  would  probably 
be  merely  the  ordinary  Loubotchynia,  vile  daubs  of 
the  reigning  Czar,  or  of  Petr'  Velike,  glaring  on 
sheets  of  bark,  or  the  coarsest  paper.  But  the  Star- 
osta  being  rich,  he  has  four  notable  engravings — 
real  engravings,  apparently  executed  in  a  very  coarse 
taille  douce  upon  white  paper,  brilliantly  if  not  har- 
moniously coloured  ;  framed,  in  what  may  be  termed, 
cabbage  rose-wood,  so  vividly  red  and  shining  is  it, 
and  duly  glazed.  There  is,  of  course,  the  late  Czar 
Nicholas — one  of  the  portraits  taken  of  him  about 
twenty  years  since — when  his  admirers  delighted  in 
describing  him  as  an  Apollo  with  the  bearing  of 
Jupiter,  and  the  strings  of  his  lyre  twisted  into  thun- 
derbolts ; — when  he  wore  a  tremendous  cocked  hat, 
shipped  fore  and  aft.  That  eagle-crowned  helmet 
on  the  imperial  head — with  which  we  became  ac- 
quainted through  the  pleasant  pages  of  Punch,  was 
the  invention  of  a  French  painter,  or  rather  military 
draughtsman,  of  whom  the  Czar  was  so  fond  that 
he  could  scarcely  be  prevailed  upon  to  allow  him  to 
leave  Russia,  much  less  withdraw  his  silver  roubles 
from  the  bank — was  not  adopted  till  eighteen-forty- 
six  or  seven.  There  is,  almost  equally,  of  course,  a 
portrait  of  another  Czar — the  White  Czar — for 
whom,  though  he  was  their  enemy,  the  Russian 
people  have  a  singular  and  almost  superstitious  ad- 
miration. The  Malakani,  or  little  wise  men  of 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  251 

Jalmboff,  believed  him,  forty  years  since,  to  be  the 
lion  of  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  sent  by  Heaven  to 
dethrone  the  false  emperor,  (the  Malakani  hold,  like 
many  others  neither  little  nor  wise,  by  the  illegiti- 
macy of  the  Romanoffs.)  There  are  many  thou- 
sands, if  not  millions,  of  the  common  Russians,  who 
believe  to  this  day  that  the  secret  of  the  reverses  sus- 
tained by  the  holy  Russian  arms  in  the  Crimea  (the 
reverses  themselves,  believe  me,  are,  notwithstand- 
ing the  lies  of  the  Invalide  Russe,  no  secret  at  home, 
for  thousands  of  crippled  soldiers  have  gone  home 
to  their  villages  to  tell  how  soundly  they  were  licked 
in  the  valley  of  the  Tchernaya,)  that  the  secrets  of 
the  defeats  of  Alma,  and  Inkermann  and  Balaclava, 
and  the  Malakhoff,  was  in  the  presence  among  the 
French  hosts  of  the  famous  White  Czar,  miracu- 
lously resuscitated,  and  reigning  at  this  very  time 
over  the  Ivansoutsk'is  in  Paris-Gorod.  One  need 
not  go  so  far  as  Volnoi-Volostchok  to  find  a  similar 
superstition.  In  the  alpine  departments  of  France 
there  are  plenty  of  peasants  who  believe  that  the 
astute  gentleman  who  lives  at  the  Tuileries  (when 
he  is  at  home,  which  is  but  seldom)  is  the  self-same 
conqueror  and  king  whose  sweetest  music  was  his 
horses'  hoofs'  notes  as  he  galloped  into  conquered 
cities ;  who  vanquished  at  Marengo,  and  was  crowned 
at  Notre  Dame,  and  saw  Moscow  blaze  before  his 
eyes  like  a  pine  torch  ;  and  ran  away  from  Waterloo, 
and  died  upon  the  rock  ;  and  did  the  work  of  forty 
centuries  in  but  fifty-two  years  of  the  Pyramids' 
brick  life. 

The  third  picture,  and  the  third  whose  presence 


252  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

here  is  still  a  matter  of  course,  (for  the  loyalty  of 
the  present  must  be  satisfied  as  well  as  that  of  the 
past)  is  a  portrait  of  the  reigning  Czar.  His  Alex- 
andrian majesty  is  represented  in  the  act  of  review- 
ing his  doughty  and  faithful  Preobajinski  Guards. 
The  emperor  and  his  guard  are  drawn  upon  about 
the  same  size  of  relative  grandeur  as  Garagantua 
and  his  courtiers  in  the  illustrations  to  Rabelais,  by 
the  incomparable  M.  Gustave  Dore.  The  emperor, 
according  to  the  laws  of  Brook  Taylor's  Perspective, 
(which,  not  being  in  the  forty-five  volumes  of  the 
Russian  code,  must,  consequently,  be  held  utterly 
heretical,  schismatic,  and  abominable,)  is  about 
twenty-five  feet  high.  The  Preobajinskis  are  about 
two  relative  inches  in  stature,  horses  and  all.  The 
emperor  is  charging  very  fiercely  over  their  heads ;  he 
is  waving  a  tremendous  sword,  and  the  plumes  of 
his  helmet  are  blowing  to  all  the  four  points  of  the 
compass  at  once.  His  toes  are  manfully  turned  in, 
and  his  sinister  thumb  turned  out,  so  that  with  his 
imperial  head  screwed  a  little  obliquely,  he  looks  not 
unlike  Saint  Nicholas  in  a  field-marshal's  uniform. 
Were  the  sword  only  a  baton,  an  ecclesiastical  Punch 
would  be  nearer  the  mark.  The  gallant  Preoba- 
jinskis— or  rather  their  horses — are  all  standing  man- 
fully on  their  hind  legs ;  and  the  patriotic  artist — a 
Moscow  man — has  artfully  depicted  their  mouths 
all  wide  open,  so  as  to  leave  you  no  room  for  doubt 
that  they  are  crying  "  Long  live  the  Czar  !  "  as  with 
one  throat.  There  is  a  brilliant  cortege  of  princes 
and  generals  behind  the  Czar  ;  and  one  of  the  grand- 
dukes — Constantino,  I  imagine — is  holding  an  eye- 


A   COUNTRY  HOUSE.  253 

glass  like  a  transparent  warming-pan,  to  his  arch- 
ducal  optic.  I  don't  think  that  the  Russian  artist 
means  to  imply  by  this  that  his  imperial  highness  is 
either  short-sighted  or  affected ;  but  an  eye-glass  or 
lorgnottsz,  is  held  to  be  a  great  sign  of  "  civlation  " 
in  Russia — almost  as  choice  a  specimen  of  the  Per- 
sicos  apparatus  as  a  Moscow  Madamsky,  or  French- 
milliner-made  bonnet. 

One  word  about  the  Preobajinski  Guards  before  I 
finish  with  number  three.  I  have  read  lately  that 
they  form  a  regiment  of  men  with  cocked-up  noses, 
and  that  every  soldier  of  a  certain  height  and  with 
a  nez  retrousse  is  sent  into  this  corps.  This  is  one 
of  the  stock  stories  with  which  the  witty  and  wily 
Russians  cram  foreigners  who  go  about  with  open 
ears  and  note-books ;  and  they  so  cram  them,  I  be- 
lieve, with  a  mischievous  view  to  the  said  foreigners 
afterwards  printing  these  cock-and-bull  stories,  and 
so  making  themselves  ridiculous,  and  their  testimony 
unworthy  of  credit.  There  are  some  eighty  thou- 
sand men  in  the  Russian  Guards  up  to  the  Preoba- 
jinski standard  height ;  and  I  think  I  am  giving  an 
under  estimate,  when  I  say  that  forty  thousand  of 
them  have  cocked-up  noses.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  forty  thousand  Russian  soldiers  are  as  much 
alike  as  forty  thousand  peas,  and  that  the  cocked-up 
nose  is  the  national  nose.  There  is  much  truth, 
however,  in  the  story,  that  great  pains  are  taken  in 
all  the  regiments  of  the  Guards  to  match  the  men 
as  much  as  possible  in  personal  appearance  by  com- 
panies and  battalions.  Thus  you  will  see  the  blue- 
eyed  men  filed  together,  the  light-moustached  men, 


254  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  blue-bearded  men,  the  small-footed  men,  and  so 
on ;  but  to  send  up  all  the  tall  men  with  cocked-up 
noses  into  the  Preobajinski  regiment  would  be  very 
much  like  sending  every  Englishman  who  wears  a 
white  neckcloth  to  be  waiter  at  the  Bedford  Hotel. 
Preobajinski  means  Transfiguration.  The  so-called 
Guards  received  their  name  from  the  Palace  of  Pre- 
obajinski, for  whose  defence  they  were  first  incor- 
porated, and  which  was  a  favourite  residence  of 
Peter  the  Great. 

With  picture  number  four,  I  have  done  with  this 
Volnoi  Volotschok  Louvre ;  or  more  properly  Na- 
tional Gallery  of  Art,  for  the  fourth  tableau  is  emi- 
nently national.  The  scene  depicted  is  one  of  the 
episodes  of  the  late  war,  in  which  the  Russians  were 
so  signally  and  uniformly  victorious.  Scene,  a  Rus- 
sian church  somewhere — very  small  and  trim — a  sort 
of  holy  front  parlour  filled  with  saints,  and  with 
striped  curtains  to  the  windows  neatly  festooned. 
Dramatis  personce :  a  band  of  terrible  Turks,  with 
huge  turbans  and  baggy  breeches — quite  the  March 
in  Bluebeard  Turks — the  magnificent  three-tailed 
bashaw  Turks,  not  the  sallow  men  with  the  tight 
coats  and  fezzes  whom  we  are  accustomed  to. 
These  ruthless  Osmanlis  have  broken  into  the  church, 
smashed  the  windows,  pulled  down  the  curtains, 
desecrated  the  altar,  disfigured  the  saints,  and  mas- 
sacred the  pope  or  priest,  who,  in  full  canonicals, 
with  a  murderous  sword  sticking  up  perpendicularly 
from  his  collar-bone,  lies  with  his  head  in  a  tall  can- 
dlestick, and  his  feet  towards  the  door.  But  the 
miscreant  pork-repudiators  have  reckoned  without 


A   COUNTRY  HOUSE.  255 

their  host.  Behold  the  eleventh  of  the  line — the 
Russian  line — who  have  come  to  the  rescue,  and 
who  turn  the  tables  on  the  Turks  in  the  most  signal 
manner!  Behold  a  whiskered  Muscovite  warrior, 
not  dusting  a  Turk's  jacket,  but  making  eyelet  holes 
in  it  with  his  good  bayonet  as  the  unbeliever  tries  to 
disfigure  more  saints.  Behold  another  miserable 
Osmanli,  his  turban  off,  and  his  bare  pate  exposed, 
prostrate,  and  crying  peccavl;  suing  for  any  infin- 
itesimal fraction  of  quarter,  while  a  zealous  grena- 
dier is  rapidly  sending  him  to  perdition,  by  the 
favourite  Russian  process  of  dashing  out  his  brains 
with  the  butt-end  of  his  musket.  Quarter,  indeed  ! 
I  marvel  much  where  it  was,  when  the  Turks  dese- 
crated the  church.  Was  it  in  the  same  part  of  Terra 
Incognita  in  which  the  English  officer  was  beaten 
by  a  Russian  market-woman  for  attempting  to  steal 
a  goose,  and  in  which  fifteen  Anglisky  mariners  and 
a  captain  rifled  a  moujik's  house  of  a  calf,  a  kakosh- 
nik,  and  fifteen  pewter  spoons — both  favourite  sub- 
jects of  delineation  with  the  Russians  ?  There  are 
two  little  features  of  detail  in  this  picture  which  I 
must  mention,  as  they  strike  me  as  being  very  curi- 
ous. Half-shattered  on  the  floor  of  the  church,  there 
lies  a  large  image  of  a  black  Virgin  and  Child — 
negro  black,  with  thick  lips.  How  came  this,  I 
wonder,  "  into  the  Grseco-Sclavonic  archaeology  ? 
And  the  rays  from  the  lighted  candles  are  made  to 
resemble  the  aureoles  or  golden  glories  round  the 
heads  of  the  saints,  and  are  ornamented  with  in- 
tricate geometrical  engine-turnings.  Any  one  who 
watches  the  outward  religious  practices  of  the  Rus- 


256  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

sians  will  be  apt  to  consider  them  candle,  if  not  fire 
worshippers ;  so  intimately  are  devotion  and  candle- 
grease  mingled  in  their  visible  worship  ;  but  be  it  as 
it  may,  the  glory-headed  candles  strike  me  as  being 
so  purely  Byzantine,  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  rec- 
ommending them  to  the  notice  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
brotherhood.  I  should  very  much  like  to  see  Mr. 
Dante  Rosetti's  notion  of  a  dark  lantern  in  that  state 
of  ornamentation.  Whether  the  Russians  eat  can- 
dles or  not  is  still  a  moot  point ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  vast  numbers  of  the  priests  live  upon  candles. 
The  subvention  allowed  them  by  the  government  is 
so  miserably  small,  that,  but  from  the  revenue  they 
derive  from  the  sale  of  votive  candles,  many  of  them 
must  inevitably  starve. 

Saving  these  four  pictures,  and  the  saint's  image, 
which  last  is  the  precious  jewel  in  the  head  of  this 
toad-like  place,  there  is  no  other  evidence  of  attempts 
to  sacrifice  to  the  graces,  in  the  Starosta's  house. 
Every  other  article  of  furniture  is  of  the  commonest, 
coarsest,  rudest,  wigwamest  description.  The  rotten 
door  swings  on  leathern  hinges,  or  strips  of  raw  hide 
rather,  like  that  of  the  watch-tower.  There  is  a 
table  formed  of  two  long  fir  planks  resting  upon 
massive  tressels.  There  is  a  scanty  square  of  dirty 
leather  on  it,  which  I  presume  serves  as  tablecloth, 
and  on  which  our  samovar  now  rests.  This  tressel- 
table  has  a  most  hideous  resemblance  to  the  high 
bench  platform  you  see  in  a  parish  deadhouse  ;  and 
I  am  horrified  by  the  coincidence,  when  Alexis  tells 
me  that  when  a  man  dies  in  these  parts  his  corpse  is 
laid  on  the  table  to  be  howled  over,  and  that  to  say 


A   COUNTRY   HOUSE.  257 

that  «  Ivan  is  on  the  table  "  is  synonymous,  in  popu- 
lar parlance,  with  saying  that  Ivan  is  dead.  I  want 
to  be  off  from  the  Starosta's  house  immediately  after 
this ;  but,  Alexis  (who  is  the  laziest  young  cub  be- 
tween here  and  Npookhopersk)  won't  hear  of  it,  and 
says  that  the  horses  haven't  had  half  enough  rest 
yet;  so  I  continue  my  inventory.  All  round  the 
Balschoi'-Isba  there  runs  a  low  wide  bench,  contrived 
a  double  debt  to  pay ;  for  the  surplus  members  of 
the  family,  for  whom  there  is  no  room  in  the  family- 
vault  bed,  lounge  on  the  bench  by  day,  and  sleep  on 
it  by  night.  I  wish  I  knew  what  there  was  in  the 
churchwarden's  pew  behind  the  partition.  More 
beds  ?  Alexis  thinks  not.  The  Starosta's  riches, 
perhaps.  Will  Alexis  ask  ?  Alexis  asks,  or  says 
that  he  does,  and  listens  to  a  voluble  explanation 
on  the  part  of  the  Starosta,  with  a  desperate  attempt 
at  an  expression  of  wisdom  in  his  large  face ;  but, 
when  I  ask  him  for  a  translation,  he  says  it  doesn't 
matter ;  and  I  have  a  worse  opinion  of  his  Russ  than 
ever. 

Alexis  is  sitting  in  a  malformed  Chinese  puzzle 
on  a  large  scale  of  timber,  once  painted  green,  and 
which  was  once,  to  the  Starosta's  great  pride,  a  gar- 
den chair  belonging  to  the  absentee,  M.  de  Kato- 
richassoff.  I,  with  my  usual  selfishness  and  disre- 
gard for  the  feelings  of  others,  (I  have  the  best 
teacup,  too,)  have  usurped  an  old,  long,  low,  dor- 
meuse  fauteuil  of  gray  Utrecht  velvet,  (the  dearly- 
beloved  furniture  covering  of  the  Russians — Vlours- 
ky,  they  call  it,  par  excellence,)  which,  from  age  and 
maltreatment,  resembles  in  its  black  and  tawny 


258  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

bundlings  nothing  half  so  much  as  the  skin  of  an 
incorrigible  old  Tom,  who  has  had  rather  a  bad 
night  of  it  on  the  tiles.  Still,  if  the  old  chair  had 
four  legs  instead  of  three,  it  would  be  a  very  com- 
fortable old  chair.  There  are  no  other  chairs,  no 
other  seats,  save  the  bench,  and  that  offered — if  it 
be  not  too  sacred  a  thing  to  sit  down  upon — by  that 
vast  chest  of  wood  painted  black,  in  the  corner. 

This  chest  has  a  formidable  iron  hasp,  and  a  pad- 
lock almost  as  big  as  a  knocker,  and  is  further  braced 
with  iron  bands.  It  is  also  screwed  to  the  floor,  I 
have  no  doubt.  It  is  the  sort  of  chest  that  Sinbad 
the  sailor  might  have  taken  with  him  on  his  voyages, 
or  that  the  piratical  merman  in  Washington  Irving's 
delightful  Knickerbockeriana  might  have  floated 
away  on  in  the  storm.  It  is  a  chest  that. I  should 
like  to  fill  with  dollars,  and  sprawl  at  full  length 
upon  till  death  came  for  change  for  a  three-score- 
and-ten  pound  note.  It  is  such  a  chest  as  might 
have  served  for  the  piece  de  resistance  in  the  Misle- 
toe-bough  tragedy — if  this  were  a  baron's  hall  in- 
stead of  a  Russian  moujik's  hut,  and  if  a  Russian 
baron's  retainers  were  ever  blithe  and  gay,  or  kept 
Christmas  holiday. 

I  suppose  that  in  this  chest  the  Starosta  keeps  his 
discharge  from  the  army — he  served  fifty  years  since, 
and  was  at  the  Borodino — which  he  cannot  read, 
but  whose  big  black  eagle  he  is  never  tired  of  ad- 
miring. Likewise,  the  Sonnik,  or  Russian  Inter- 
preter of  Dreams,  coarsely  printed  at  Kief  on  grey 
paper,  and  illustrated  with  glaring  daubs,  whose 
letterpress  is  likewise  Chaldee  to  him,  but  which  he 


A  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  259 

causes  one  of  his  son's  wives  who  can  read  (she  was 
a  lady's  maid  once)  to  spell  over  to  him  occasionally. 
The  interpretations  do  not  stand  him  in  very  valua- 
ble stead,  certainly,  for  he  has  generally  forgotten 
the  dreams  themselves  before  he  has  vicarious  re- 
course to  the  dream-book.  Laid  up  within  the 
recesses  of  this  monstrous  chest,  not  in  lavender, 
but  in  a  blue  cotton  pocket-handkerchief  well  im- 
pregnated with  mahorka,  is  the.Starosta's  blue  cloth 
caftan  of  state — a  robe  only  worn  on  the  most  solemn 
and  jubilatory  occasions,  such  as  one  of  the  angel's 
visits  (so  few  and  far  between  are  they)  of  the  lord 
of  the  manor  to  his  lands,  or  the  great  ecclesiastical 
fetes  of  the  egg-eating  Easter,  and  the  peppermint 
brandy-moistened  Assumption.  This  caftan  is  an 
ample  robe,  possibly  of  genuine  indigo-dyed  English 
broadcloth,  which  would  be  worth  at  Leeds  or 
Bradford,  its  birthplace,  perhaps  fifty  shillings  ;  but 
for  which  the  Starosta  has  paid  at  the  fair  of  Wish- 
noi- Woloschtchok  (which  you  are  not,  by  any  means, 
to  confound  with  my  Volno'i)  as  much  as  one  hun- 
dred roubles  in  paper  assignations,  or  twenty-five  in 
silver — a  matter  of  four  pounds  English.  There  are 
real  silver  buttons  to  it,  and  it  is  lined  with  silk,  and 
encircled  by  the  gold  and  silver  embroidered  girdle 
which,  carefully  wrapped  in  tissue-paper,  lies  beside 
it ;  it  is  a  very  swellish  and  dashing  garment.  His 
Starostaship's  ordinary  or  work-a-day  costume  is  a 
long  loose  coat  of  coarse  gray  frieze — very  Irish  in 
texture,  though  not  in  fashion ;  and  a  bell-crowned 
hat — we  have  not  yet  seen  it  on  his  head,  though — 
decidedly  Irish,  both  in  material  and  make.  The 


260  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

sash  is  of  gaudy  colours,  but  of  the  coarsest  cotton 
fabric :  purchased  at  the  Gostinnoi'-dvor  of  Tver, 
most  likely,  and  manufactured  in  the  sham  Man- 
chester mill  of  some  seigneur  anxious  to  increase  his 
revenues  by  cotton  lordism.  Was  there  ever  such 
a  land  of  contradictions  as  this  Muscovy  ?  Our 
heaven-born  aristocracy,  or  at  least  their  great  ma- 
jority, think  trade  and  manufactures  derogatory  to 
the  pearls  and  velvet  of  their  coronets.  It  is  a 
standing  joke  with  us  that  we  have  one  peer  of 
the  realm  who  has  so  far  forgotten  his  dignity  as 
to  be  a  coal-merchant,  and  another  who  is  a  tin- 
man. Yet  the  Russian*  aristocracy,  incomparably 
the  proudest  in  the  world,  do  not  think  it  a  slur  on 
their  dignity  to  work  cotton-factories,  soap-boiling 
establishments,  beetroot  sugar-bakeries,  candle  man- 
ufactories, tanneries,  paper-staining  and  floorcloth 
works,  and  iron-foundries.  Imagine  "  Norfolk,  West- 
minster, and  Co.,  bone-boilers,  Vauxhall,  London  !  " 
In  this  trunk  of  suppositions  the  wealthy  Starosta 
has — sing  it,  oh  choir  of  Westminster  Abbey! — three 
shirts  of  three  different  colours  ;  the  red,  white,  and 
blue  ;  but  he  wears  them  not.  No  ;  wary  old  man  ! 
He  keeps  them  against  the  day  when  Sophron,  the 
oily  drunkard  shall  be  married,  or  some  one  or  other 
of  his  numerous  grandchildren  shall  enter  into  the 
wedded  state.  There  is,  actually  and  politically,  a 
considerable  infusion  of  communism  in  the  rival  in- 
stitutions of  this  incoherent  nightmare  country  ;  and, 
as  regards  garments,  the  doctrines  of  Messrs.  Proud- 
hon  and  Robert  Owen  are  astonishingly  prevalent 
among  the  common  people.  The  fable  of  the  two 


A   COUNTKY   HOUSE.  261 

friends  who  had  but  one  coat,  hat,  and  addenda 
between  them  is  realized  here.  Sons  wear  their 
father's  shirts,  and  grandsires  their  grandson's  hats. 
The  socialism  as  regards  boots  is  wonderful.  -The 
peasant  lasses  wear  the  peasant  lads'  boots  habitu- 
ally (not  as  a  task  allotted  to  a  subjugated  sex,  of 
wearing  the  new  boots  easy  for  the  men-folk  to  walk 
in,  but  turn  and  turn  about.  If  Vacil  be  at  home, 
Tatiana  goes  to  the  fields  in  Vacil's  upper  leathers, 
and  vice  versa.)  Very  frequently  there  are  but  two 
pair  of  boots  to  a  very  numerous  family,  and  great 
economy  is  necessarily  observed  in  wearing  them. 
You  may  often  see,  even  in  the  suburbs  of  Peters- 
burg and  Moscow,  gangs  of  peasant  girls  and  young 
men  returning  from  the  day's  work,  the  comeliest 
and  strongest  wearing  their  family  boots,  the  others 
shod  either  with  the  ordinary  lapti,  or  bark-basket 
shoes,  or  going  altogether  barefoot.  If  it  be  rainy 
weather,  the  much-prized  family  boots  are  carried 
slung  crosswise  over  the  shoulders.  No  Vacil  or 
Tatiana  dare,  for  his  or  her  life,  run  the  risk  of  in- 
juring the  paternal  slippers  by  contact  with  mud  or 
water.  The  result,  on  the  return  to  the  paternal 
hovel,  would  be  such  a  fearful  application  of  leather 
— not  boot  leather,  but  of  a  thinner  and  more  flex- 
ible description,  and  not  to  the  feet,  as  would  cause 
Vacil  to  howl,  and  Tatiana  to  cry  her  not  very  hand- 
some eyes  out.  A  bran  new  pair  of  boots  are  to  a 
Russian  a  prize  of  infinite  value.  I  have  seen  a 
Moujik,  or  an  Ischvostchik,  who  has  been  able  to 
treat  himself  to  such  a  luxury,  for  the  first  time  in 
two  years,  perhaps,  lying  on  a  bench,  or — and  this 


262  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

is  just  as  likely — on  the  ground,  with  his  new  booted 
legs  raised  high  above  his  head  against  a  wall,  con- 
templating their  newness,  toughness,  and  thickness, 
and  inhaling  their  villanous  odour  with  the  half- 
drowsy,  half-delirious  mansuetude  of  an  opium-eater 
of  the  Theriarki-Tcharchi,  over  his  fifth  pipe. 

The  Starosta  must  have  a  fur  robe,  too,  in  this 
chest ;  as  well  as  those  filthy  sheepskins  which  lie 
on  the  top  of  the  stove.  It  must  be  a  foxskin  schou- 
ba  ;  or,  perhaps,  a  brown-bearskin,  originally  the  prop- 
erty, of  a  very  grisly  customer  of  that  ilk,  shot  in  a 
Carelian  forest,  by  one  of  his  sons  while  on  a  hunt- 
ing excursion  with  his  noble  Barynn,  and  which  he, 
having  been  miserably  hugged,  clawed,  and  mangled 
in  the  ursine  strife,  was  graciously  allowed  to  keep. 
And,  finally,  in  this  chest  of  chests,  there  is  a  leath- 
ern bag  full  of  copper  copecks,  and  odd  pieces  of  the 
strangest  and  most  ancient  coins  the  Starosta  has 
been  able,  in  the  course  of  a  long  lifetime,  to  collect 
The  Russians,  high  and  low,  have  a  curious  and  de- 
cided turn  for  numismatics.  There  is  scarcely  a 
gentleman  of  any  pretensions  to  taste,  who  does  not 
possess  something  like  a  cabinet  of  rare  and  antique 
coins  and  medals;  and  I  have  seen  in  some  mer- 
chant's leather-bag  collections,  such  weird,  barbaric, 
dark  age  moneys  and  tokens,  as  would  make  the 
eyes  of  the  curators  of  our  museums  to  twinkle,  and 
their  mouths  to  water. 

This  is  the  house  of  the  Starosta.  After  all,  I 
might  have  given  a  very  lucid  idea  of  a  Russian 
peasant's  house,  by  repeating  a  succinct  description 
given  me  by  a  certain  young  Russian,  soon  after  my 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  263 

arrival  in  St.  Petersburg.  «  A  moujik's  house,"  he 
•said,  "  is  dark,  and  made  of  wood ;  the  floor  is  gray ; 
the  walls  are  gray,  and  the  roof  is  gray ;  you  can 
cut  the  smell  of  oily  fish  and  cabbage-soup  with  a 
hatchet,  and  at  night  you  can  hear  the  bugs  bark." 
(  Vous  entendrez  aboyer  les  punaises.) 


XII. 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME. 

THIS  is  the  order  of  afternoon — June  the  month, 
and  two  hours  past  meridian  the  time.  Do  you 
never  please  yourself  in  striving  to  imagine  what 
people  are  doing  thousands  of  miles  away  at  such 
and  such  an  exact  moment  ?  It  must  be  merry  this 
golden  June  season  in  gay  Sherwood.  Bold  Robin 
Hood  has  thrown  his  crossbow  by,  and  feels  quite 
honest,  though  somewhat  a-dry,  and  is  gone  to  drain 
a  flagon  of  the  best,  in  the  leafiest  glade  of  the  wood 
with  that  Friar,  who  is  always  thirsty.  Will  Scar- 
lett is  determined  that  his  nose  shall  vie  in  hue  with 
his  name,  and  is  toasting  jolly  June  in  the  sunshine 
with  Allen-a-Dale,  who  has  got  his  rebec  in  fine 
tune,  and  carols  to  it  till  the  birds  grow  jealous,  and 
think  him  a  very  over-rated  performer.  Midge  the 
Miller  is  indubitably  singing  with  the  best  of  them, 
for  Midge,  though  the  careful  Percy  has  somehow 


264  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

overlooked  the  inference,  was  evidently  a  Cheshire 
man,  and  resided  on  the  banks  of  the  River  Dee, 
where  who  so  jolly  as  he  ?     As  for  Little  John,  at 
most  times  rather  a  saturnine  and  vindictive  outlaw, 
inciting  the  dishonest  but  peaceable  Robin  to  cut 
off  the  heads  of  bishops  and  pitch  them  into  their 
graves,  in  addition  to  rifling  them  of  their  mitres 
and   pastoral  rings — Little  John   is  laughing  very 
heartily,  in  his  own  misanthropical  manner,  to  think 
that  it  is  June,  and  fine  weather,  and  that  it  will 
soon  be  the  height  of  the  season  for  pilgrimages  to 
the   wealthy   shrines;    and    Maid    Marian — what 
should   or  could   she  be  doing   in  her  bower,  but 
weaving  many-coloured  chaplets  and  garlands,  and 
singing  songs  about  summer  and  the  roses  in  June  ? 
So  all  is  merry  this  June  day  in  my  imaginary 
Sherwood,   and   in    many  other  real    and   tangible 
localities  and  living  hearts  my  fancy  could  paint  at 
this  moment,  far,  far  away.     This  is  a  merry  time, 
I  am  sure,  for  some  scores  of  gauzy  bonnets  with 
pretty  faces  behind  them ;   for  hampers  with  many 
bottles  containing  something  else  besides,  salad  mix- 
ture ;  for  steamboat  decks,  for  pic-nic  turfs,  for  Ken- 
ilworth  and  Netley  ruins,  for  the  bow-window  at  the 
Trafalgar,  for  eight  hours  at  the  seaside,  for  excur- 
sion vans,  for    Sunday-school   festivals   with   their 
many  flags  and   monstrous  tea-drinkings  ;   for  the 
man  with   the  trombone,  and  the  gipsies  at   Nor- 
wood and  the  Saint  Sebastianzed  artillery  man  at 
chalky  Rosherville  ;   for  the  solemn  chestnut  trees 
and  timid  deer  of  Bushey,  and  the  pert  pagoda  and 
shaven  lawns   of   Cremorne  ;    for   many  thousand 


RUSSIANS  AT  HOME;  265 

happy  men  and  women  and  children,  who  are  dis- 
porting themselves  in  God's  good  summer  season. 
I  cannot  linger  further  on  the  delights  which  mirth 
can  give ;  but  I  sum  them  all  up  in  a  presumed 
Sherwood,  and  the  assumption  that  it  is  very  merry 
there.  But,  I  am  compelled  to  confess  mournfully, 
also,  that  the  genuine  merriment  I  can  recall  is  on 
the  wrong  side  of  fifteen  hundred  miles  away,  and 
that  it  is  the  very  reverse  of  merry  in  the  month  of 
June  in  the  village  of  Volnoi  Voloschtchok. 

Merry!  Imagine  the  merriment  of  a  Cagot  vil- 
lage in  Beam  in  the  middle  of  the  Middle  Ages ; 
imagine,  the  joviality  of  the  Diamond  in  Deny, 
before  Kirke's  ships  broke  through  the  Boom.  Im- 
agine the  conviviality  of  a  select  party  of  Jews 
beleaguered  in  the  castle  of  York,  with  the  king's 
surgeon  dentists,  to  the  number  of  some  thousands, 
outside.  Imagine  the  enjoyment  of  a  Rabelais 
bound  to  board  and  lodge  with  a  John  Calvin.  I 
think  any  of  these  reunions  would  surpass,  in  out- 
side gayety  at  least,  the  cheerfulness  of  a  Russian 
Sloboda,  and  of  the  Russians  at  home  therein. 
Alexis  Hardshellovitch  and  I  emerge  from  the  Star- 
osta's  house,  and  wander  up  and  down  the  longitud- 
inal gap  between  the  houses,  which  may,  by  an 
extreme  stretch  of  courtesy,  be  called  the  main 
street.  I  may  here  mention  that  the  street,  regarded 
as  a  thoroughfare,  is  as  yet  imperfectly  understood 
in  Russia.  The  monstrous  perspectives  of  St. 
Petersburg  have  few  imitations  in  the  provinces. 
There  are  even  traces  remaining  in  modern  Moscow 
of  the  circular  streets  of  the  WEND  villages ;  some 
12 


266  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NOKTII. 

of  which  yet  remain  in  the  Altmark,  and  in  the 
province  of  Luneborg  in  Germany,  and  are  com- 
mon in  the  purely  Sclavonic  parts  of  Russia.  The 
houses  are  jostled  one  against  the  other  in  a  circle, 
more  or  less  regular,  and  there  is  but  one  opening' for 
ingress  or  egress.  The  cause  of  this  peculiar  form 
of  construction  is  doubtless  to  be  traced  to  the  old 
Ishmaelitish  times,  when  every  village's  hand  was 
against  its  neighbour.  In  many  of  the  Russian  gov- 
ernments there  are  still  villages  consisting  of  a  single 
street,  closed  at  one  extremity,  resembling  what  in 
western  cities  is  termed  a  blind  alley.  I  feel  a  den- 
sity of  dulness  and  mental  melancholy  settling  on 
me  in  such  a  place ;  the  houses  begin  to  look  like 
cellular  vans ;  the  few  trees  like  gibbets  ;  the  birds — 
the  human  ones  I  mean — like  gaol-birds ;  the  whole 
place  seems  plague-stricken,  or  panic-stricken,  or 
famine-stricken,  or  all  three  at  once. 

As  for  "  Life,"  social  acceptation  of  the  term,  there 
is  not  a  pinch  of  it  in  the  whole  gray  snuff-box  of  a 
hamlet.  I  am  not  difficult  to  please  as  to  villages. 
I  don't  expect  to  find  green  lanes,  trim  hedges,  ivy- 
grown  churches,  smiling  cottages,  rosy  children, 
ponds  with  ducks,  and  cows,  and  sheep,  looking  as 
though  they  had  been  washed  and  spruced  up  for 
the  especial  benefit  of  Mr.  SIDNEY  COOPER,  R.  A., 
who  had  sent  word  he  was  coming.  I  don't  expect 
these  things,  as  a  matter  of  course,  anywhere  but  in 
an  English  village.  I  have  seen  some  of  the  dullest, 
dreariest,  ugliest  villages  under  the  sun  in  France 
and  Germany  and  Belgium.  The  clean  village  of 
Brock  is  not  so  clean  as  it  is,  and  much  more  hide- 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  267 

cms  than  it  might  be  ;  and  I  am  given  to  understand 
that  an  American  "  Shaker"  village  is  calculated,  for 
gloominess  in  aspect  and  deficiency  in  the  pictur- 
esque, to  "  whop  all  creation"  quite  hollow.  Still  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  a  village  peopled  by  primitive 
Puritans,  who  had  espoused  the  deceased  wives' 
sisters'  husbands'  wives  of  Mormon  elders,  and  had 
afterwards  been  converted  to  the  Shaker  way  of 
thinking,  must  be  a  community  of  roaring  prodigals 
compared  to  the  inhabitants  of  Volnoi. 

Beyond  the  watchtower,  there  is  not  one  building 
to  give  individuality  to  the  village,  or  any  sign  of 
communal  organization.  The  Starosta's  house  is 
two  or  three  sizes  larger  than  its  fellows ;  the  only 
other  hut  that  may  be  called  a  public  building  is  the 
granary,  which  is  a  barn  of  considerable  size ;  but 
houses  and  barns  are  all  alike — all  littered  at  one  far- 
row by  one  inexorable  gray,  dull,  dingy,  timber-bris- 
tled sow.  The  very  poorest  moujik's  house  is  the 
diminished  counterpart  of  the  reputedly  wealthy 
Starosta's  dwelling.  There  is  nowhere  any  sign  of 
the  humblest  decoration,  the  feeblest  attempt  at  porch 
or  summer-house  building,  or  parasitical  shrub-train- 
ing, or  painting,  or  whitewashing,  or  even  paling- 
pitching.  There  is  not  a  bench  before  a  door ;  but 
it  must  be  admitted  that  over  each  doorway  there  is 
a  rough  fir  board,  on  which  is  branded  rather  than 
painted,  in  red  and  white,  the  rudest  resemblance  of 
a  bucket,  a  hatchet,  a  saw,  a  ladder,  a  coil  of  ropes, 
and  similar  implements.  These  Egypto- Cherokee 
implements  mean  that  the  dwellers  in  the  doorways, 
are  respectively  bucket-men,  hatchet-men,  saw-men, 


268  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

and  so  forth  ;  add  that,  in  case  of  fire,  they  are  bound 
to  provide  those  implements,  and  to  do  suit  and  ser- 
vice with  them  to  their  Barynn  towards  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  conflagration.  If  I  want  to  see  cottage 
porches  and  trailing  plants,  Alexis  tells  me  I  must  go 
to  Ekaterinoslaf,  some  hundreds  of  versts  off,  or  to 
the  (said  to  be)  smiling  villages  in  the  governments 
of  Koursk  and  Woronesch.  If  I  want  to  see  peas- 
ants' dwellings  otherwise  than  in  the  interminable 
gray  garb,  I  must  visit  the  Slobodas  of  wealthy  and 
puissant  seigneurs — the  Orloffs,  Demidoffs,  and 
Tcheremetieffs,  where  the  houses  are  painted  in  all 
the  colours  of  the  rainbow ;  where  the  Starosta's 
house  has  a  garden  before  and  a  garden  behind  ;  and 
where  there  is  positively  a  church  whose  timbered 
sides  are  painted  without,  and  plastered  within,  and 
whose  dome  and  cupolas  are  daubed  the  brightest 
blue,  and  bespangled  with  stars  in  burnished  copper. 
Not  this  for  Volno'i.  Here  all  is  gray ;  yet  it  is  far 
from  the  sort  of  place  where  Beranger's  Merry  little 
gray  fat  man  would  elect  to  take  up  his  abode. 
Road,  and  palings,  and  scant  herbage,  and  stones, 
and  houses  are  ah1  of  the  exact  tint  of  modellers' 
clay.  One  longs  not  for  the  darling  green  of  Eng- 
lish scenery,  for  that  is  hopeless  and  unattainable, 
but  for  even  the  yellow  smeared  houses  of  eastern 
towns,  or  the  staring  white  of  French  villages. 
There  is  but  one  variation  in  hue, — far  up  above 
where  the  sun  dwells ;  and  there  it  is  indeed  a  hot 
and  copper  sky,  and  the  sun  at  noon  is  bloody. 
But  the  great  master  of  light  and  shade  disdains  to 
throw  Volnoi  into  chiaro-oscuro.  He  will  parch 


RUSSIANS  AT  HOME.  269 

and  wither,  and  blaze  up  its  surface  with  a  uni- 
formly-spread blast  of  burning  marl ;  but  he  will 
give  it  no  dark  corners,  no  chequered  lights — no 
Rembrandt  groves  of  rich  brown — no  Ostade  dia- 
mond touches  of  pearly  brilliancy. 

There  is  so  deep  rooted  a  want  of  confidence  in 
the  quicksand-like  soil  of  Russia  on  the  part  of  the 
dwellers  in  towns,  as  well  as  those  who  abide  in  the 
country,  that  the  foundations  of  the  houses  reach 
far  above  the  earth.  In  St.  Petersburg,  indeed,  the 
basement  of  every  house  is  vaulted,  like  the  bullion 
offices  at  the  Bank  of  England.  But  in  villages 
such  as  this,  precautions  have  been  taken  to  prevent 
the  poor  timber  house  being  blown  away,  or  tum- 
'bling  to  pieces,  or  falling  head  over  heels,  or  sinking 
right  through  the  rotten  earth,  and  coming  out  at  the 
antipodes.  By  a  species  of  compromise  between  the 
dog-kennel,  the  hen-roost,  and  the  pigeon-cote  styles 
of  architecture,  the  houses  are  themselves  perched 
upon  blocks  of  granite,  a  material  common  enough 
in  this  country,  and  admirably  suited  to  the  sculp- 
ture of  monoliths  to  great  men,  were  there  any  great 
men  in  it  to  raise  monoliths  to.  En  attendant,  they 
raise  statues  to  the  rascals.  There  is  naturally  be- 
tween the  planks  of  the  ground-floor,  and  the  ague- 
steeped,  malaria-emitting  marshy  ground  beneath,  a 
space  some  fourteen  inches  in  height,  and  this  space 
is  a  hothouse  for  foul  weeds,  a  glory-hole  for  name- 
less filth  and  rubbish,  and  a  perpetually  fresh  field 
and  pasture  new  for  saurian  reptiles  and  elephant- 
ine vermin.  The  houses  forming  the  oulitza,  or 
street,  are  not  contiguous.  They  are  detached  villa 


270  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

residences,  with  irregular  intervals,  offering  prospects 
of  gray  dust-heaps  and  copper  sky.  But  with  not 
so  much  as  a  clothes-pole  which  a  Jonah  could  sit 
under  with  the  hope  that  he  might  be  overshadowed 
by  a  gourd  in  the  morning. 

No  shops.  Shops  are  a  feature  of  village  life  not 
yet  understood  in  a  Russian  sloboda.  Even  in  gov- 
ernment towns  of  some  pretensions — even  in  the  Go- 
rods — where  there  are  two  or  three  churches  to  every 
hundred  inhabitants — shops  for  the  sale  of  the  com- 
monest necessaries  of  life  are  wofully  scanty  in 
number.  There  are  some  houses  (in  the  towns) 
where  bread  is  sold ;  and  in  the  meanest  villages 
there  is  the  usual  and  inevitable  quota  of  govern- 
ment dram-shops ;  but  for  every  other  article  of  mer-" 
chandise, — whether  you  desire  to  purchase  it  whole- 
sale or  retail, — you  must  go,  as  in  a  Turkish  town 
in  Asia  Minor,  or  in  a  Hindostanee  cantonment,  to 
the  bazaar,  which  is  in  a  Gostinnoi-dvor  on  the 
smallest,  seediest,  rag-shoppish  scale,  but  called  by 
the  same  high-sounding  name,  and  which  is  as 
much  the  centre  of  sale  and  barter  transactions,  as 
though  it  were  either  one  of  the  stately  edifices  in 
which  the  buyers  and  sellers  of  St.  Petersburg  the 
heathen,  and  Moscow  the  holy,  spend  or  gain  4heir 
millions  of  roubles.  There  is  no  Gostinnoi-dvor, 
of  course,  in  such  petty  villegiaturas  as  Volnoi,  and 
the  happy  villagers  effect  their  little  marketings  in 
this  wise.  The  major  proportion  of  the  poor  food 
they  eat,  they  produce  themselves.  The  coarse 
grain  they  and  their  cattle  fodder  on  is  either  gar- 
nered in  their  own  bins  behind  their  own  hovels,  or 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  271 

is  drawn,  under  certain  restrictions,  and  in  stated 
rations — (in  times  of  scarcity) — from  the  common 
granary.  Though  small  their  village  home,  the  Im- 
perial Government,  in  its  wisdom  and  mercy,  and 
bent  on  comforting  its  people,  has  thrown  the  ill- 
boding  shadow  of  its  eagle  wings  over  a  noisome 
shebeen  of  a  vodki-larka,  or  grog-shop,  where,  on 
high  days  and  holidays,  the  children  of  the  Czar 
may  drink  theftiselves  as  drunk  as  soot,  without  fear 
of  punishment ;  and  where,  on  non-red  letter  days, 
they  get  drunk  with  no  permission  at  all — and  are 
duly  sobered  by  the  stick  afterwards.  For  raiment, 
the  women  weave  some  coarse  fabric  for  common 
wear,  and  spin  some  sailcloth-like  linen ;  as  for  cali- 
coes and  holiday  garments,  the  Starosta  and  the 
Bourmister  are  good  enough  to  make  that  little 
matter  right  for  the  people  between  them.  They 
clothe  the  naked,  for  a  consideration,  and  in  their 
beneficence  take  payment  in  the  smallest  instal- 
ments for  the  goods  supplied;  but  woe  to  the 
moujik  or  the  baba  who  is  behindhand  in  his  or  her 
little  payments  to  those  inexorable  tallymen. 

For,  the  chief  prop  or  basis  of  the  municipal  au- 
thority is,  of  course,  the  Holy  Stick ;  whose  glori- 
ous, pious,  and  immortal  memory  will,  no  doubt,  be 
drunk  by  Russian  tories  of  the  old  school,  and  with 
nine  times  nine,  a  century  hence.  As  I  intend  here- 
after to  speak  of  the  H.  S.  in  its  institutional  point 
of  view,  and  to  show  that,  like  the  tchinn,  it  has  a 
pyramidal  and  mutually  cohering  and  supporting 
formation ;  I  have  only  to  hint,  in  this  place,  that 
the  happy  villagers  get  an  intolerable  amount  of  it, 


272  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

both  from  the  Bourmister  and  the  Starosta.  The 
Bourmister  is  the  great  judge — Minos,  Rhadaman- 
thus,  and  .ZEacus  combined — under  the  Pluto  of  this 
Tartarus,  the  absent  M.  de  Katerichassoff.  The 
Bourmister  has  power  to  order  his  adjoint  the  Star- 
osta, for  all  his  long  beard  and  venerable  aspect,  to 
undergo  the  discipline  of  the  stick ;  he  has  the 
power  to  order  the  Starosta's  great-grandmother  to 
be  flogged,  were  it  possible  for  that  old  lady  to  be 
alive.  The  young  men  of  the  village,  the  young 
maidens  thereof,  the  children,  and  the  idiots,  and  the 
sick  people,  can  all  at  the  word  of  command  from 
the  north  German  intendant,  be  lashed  like  hounds ; 
or,  at  his  pleasure,  he  can  send  them — thirty  miles' 
distance,  if  he  chooses — to  a  police  station,  with  a 
little  note  to  the  nadziratelle  or  polizie-kapitan ; 
which  note  is  at  once  honoured  by  that  functionary, 
who  takes  care  that,  as  far  as  there  is  any  virtue  in 
the  battogues  or  split-canes,  the  person  entitled  to 
receive  the  amount  of  toco  for  which  the  bill  is  good, 
shall  have  no  cause  to  complain  of  the  police  rate  of 
discount.  Discount !  the  generous  nadziratelle  will 
oft-times  give  the  moujik  an  odd  dozen  for  luck. 

The  Bourmister's  authority,  then,  is  almost  as 
awful  and  irresponsible  as  that  of  the  captain  of  a 
man-of-war  thirty  years  ago,  (the  nearest  approach 
to  the  Grand  Seigneur  I  can  think  of,)  and  he  can 
order  the  gratings  to  be  rigged,  and  the  hands  to  be 
turned  up  for  punishment,  whenever  things  are  not 
going  shipshape,  or  he  is  out  of  temper.  The 
Starosta  more  closely  resembles  the  boatswain.  He 
has  no  special  authority,  under  the  articles  of  war, 


RUSSIANS    AT  HOME.  273 

to  beat,  but  he  does  most  consumedly.  The  Bour- 
mister  can  cause  any  slave  man  or  woman  to  be 
stripped,  tied  up,  and  flogged ;  but  he  does  it  offi- 
cially, and  with  a  grim  mocking  semblance  of  exe- 
cuting justice.  The  Starosta  kicks,  cudgels,  punches, 
and  slaps — not  officially,  but  officiously.  The  one 
state  of  things  resembles  the  punishment  inflicted 
by  Dr.  Broomback,  the  schoolmaster, — the  other,  the 
thrashing  administered  by  the  fourth-form  boy  to  his 
fag.  But  there  is  not  much  to  choose  between  the 
two  inflictions,  as  far  as  the  amount  of  pain  suffered. 
The  dorsal  muscles  are  as  easily  contused  by  the 
bully-boy's  hockey-stick  as  by  the  schoolmaster's 
cane  ;  and  a  whip,  as  long  as  it  is  a  whip,  will  hurt 
whether  it  be  wielded  by  a  police-corporal,  or  by  a 
brutal  peasant. 

Among  a  people  so  constantly  beaten  as  are  the 
Russians,  it  would  naturally  be  expected  that  when- 
ever the  beaten  had  the  power,  they  would  become 
themselves  the  beaters,  and  that  their  wives  and 
children,  their  cattle  and  domestic  animals  would 
lead  a  terrible  time  of  it.  This  is  not  the  case. 
Haxthausen,  with  an  apologetic  shrug  for  the  abom- 
inations of  the  stick  regime,  says,  "  Tout  le  monde 
donne  des  coups  en  Russie,"  and  goes  on  to  say 
that,  the  father  beats  his  son,  the  husband  his  wife, 
the  mother  her  daughter,  the  child  his  playfellow, 
and  so  forth.  I  am  thoroughly  disinclined  to  be- 
lieve this.  From  all  I  have  seen  of  the  common 
people,  they  appear  to  treat  each  other  with  kind- 
ness and  forbearance.  A  father  may  occasionally 
pitch  into  his  drunken  son ;  but  the  Russians  at 


274  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

home  are  far  removed  from  being  systematically 
violent  and  cruel.  There  is  this  one  grand  protec- 
tion to  the  married  ladies,  that  the  Russian  husband 
when  drunk,  is,  instead  of  a  tiger,  the  most  innocent 
of  ba-a  lambs.  It  never  by  any  chance  occurs  to 
him  to  jump  upon  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  or  to 
knock  her  teeth  down  her  throat,  or  to  kneel  on  her 
chest,  or  to  chastise  her  with  a  poker.  When  most 
drunk  he  is  most  affectionate.  We  have  all  of  us 
heard  the  stock  Russian  story,  stating  it  to  be  the 
custom  for  a  Russian  bride  to  present  her  future 
lord  and  master  with  a  whip  on  the  wedding-day, 
and  to  be  afterwards  known  to  express  discontent  if 
her  husband  was  lax  in  the  exercise  of  the  thong  on 
her  marital  shoulders.  Such  an  event,  I  have  good 
reason  to  believe,  is  as  common  in  Russia  as  is  the 
sale  of  a  wife  in  Smithfield,  and  with  a  halter  round 
her  neck,  among  us  in  England.  Yet  Muscovite 
husbands  will  lie  quite  as  long  under  the  imputation 
of  wife-whipping  as  the  English  husbands  do  under 
the  stigma  of  wife-selling,  and  as  unjustly.  In  this 
case  the  saddle  is  placed  on  exactly  the  wrong  horse. 
A  Russian  peasant  has  really  no  objection  to  sell 
his  wife ;  and  for  a  schtoff  or  demi-John  of  vodki 
will  part  with  his  Tatiana  or  Ekaterina  cheerfully. 
The  Englishman  will  not  barter  away  his  moiety, 
but  he  keeps  her,  and  bruises  her.  To  their  horses 
and  cattle  the  Russians  are  singularly  merciful,  pre- 
ferring far  more  to  drive  them  by  kind  words  than 
by  blows.  In  general,  too,  the  women  seem  to 
treat  the  babies  and  little  children  with  all  desirable 
kindness  and  affection  ;  the  only  exceptional  case  I 


RUSSIANS   AT   HOME.  275 

can  recall  was  narrated  to  me  by  a  Russian  gentle- 
man, who  told  me  that  in  some  villages  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  Tchernigoff  there  was  a  perfect  epidemic 
among  the  women  (only)  for  beating  their  children ; 
and  that  they  were  in  the  habit  of  treating  them 
with  such  ferocious  brutality,  that  the  severest  pun- 
ishments had  to  be  applied  to  the  unnatural  parents, 
and  in  many  cases  the  children  had  to  be  separated 
from  them.  I  must  state,  to  whichever  point  of  the 
argument  it  may  tend,  that  my  informant  was  him- 
self a  slave-owner;  and  I  am  the  more  bound  to 
make  the  statement,  because  I  have  frequently  heard 
similar  stories  of  the  almost  inexpressible  cruelties 
of  slave-mothers  to  their  children,  from  slave-owners 
from  the  southern  states  of  America.  It  is  a  curious 
circumstance,  although  quite  foreign  to  the  analogy 
sought  to  be  here  conveyed,  that  the  village  of  L'Es- 
tague,  near  Marseilles,  which  was  originally  colon- 
ized in  the  old  Roman  times,  bears  at  this  day  a 
precisely  identical  disreputation  for  the  cruelty  of 
the  mothers  towards  the  children. 

The  picture  of  a  Russian  village  and  Russians  at 
home,  without  a  portrait  of  the  institution  which 
serves  the  Muscovite  moujik  for  inglenook,  cooking- 
range,  summer  siesta-place,  winter  bed,  wardrobe, 
gossiping-place,  and  almost  sole  comfort  and  allevi- 
ator of  misery — the  Peetch,  or  stove — would  be  an 
imposture.  I  want  the  limner's  and  wood-engraver's 
aid  here,  desperately ;  but,  failing  that,  I  must  go  to 
my  old  trade  of  paper-staining,  and  word-stencilling, 
and  do  my  best  to  draw  the  peetch  with  movable 
types  and  printer's  ink. 


276  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

The  Russian  aristocratic  stove,  white,  sculptured, 
monumental,  gigantic,  is  like  the  sepulchre  of  some 
great  man  in  an  abbey,  which  has  been  newly  re- 
stored and  beautified.  The  Russian  popular — I 
dare  not  for  my  ears'  sake  say  democratic — stove  is, 
without,  wondrously  like  an  English  parish  church 
with  a  flat  roof.  And  the  model  is  not  on  so  very 
small  a  scale  either ;  for  I  have  seen  stoves  in  Rus- 
sian houses,  which,  as  a  Shetland  pony  is  to  a  Bar- 
clay and  Perkins'  Entire  horse,  might  be  compared 
in  magnitude  to  that  smallest  of  parish  churches — 
St.  Lawrence's  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  The  stove, 
like  the  church,  has  a  square  tower,  on  whose  turret 
pigeons  coo  ;  a  choir  and  aisles,  a  porch  and  vestry. 
It  is  a  blind  church,  having  no  windows  ;  but  it  has 
plenty  of  doors,  and  it  has  vaults  beneath  its  base- 
ment, where  unsightly  bodies  do  lie.  The  stove 
stands  sometimes  boldly  in  the  middle  of  the  princi- 
pal apartment,  as  a  church  should  do  in  the  centre 
of  its  parish  ;  sometimes  it  is  relegated  against  one 
of  the  walls,  three  parts  of  whose  entire  side  it 
occupies.  The  stove  has  a  smoke-pipe,  through 
which  the  fumes  of  the  incandescent  fuel  pass  (but 
not  necessarily)  into  a  chimney,  and  out  of  a  chim- 
ney-pot. But  anywhere  out  of  the  house  is  thought 
quite  sufficient,  and  the  chimney-pot  may  be  up- 
stairs or  down-stairs,  or  in  my  lady's  chamber,  so 
long  as  the  smoke  has  a  partial  outlet  somewhere. 
I  say  partial,  for  smoke  has  odd  ways  of  curling  up 
and  permeating  through  old  nooks  and  corners,  and 
pervading  the  house  generally.  It  comes  up  through 
chinks  of  the  floor  in  little  spirals ;  it  frays  in  um- 


RUSSIANS  AT  HOME.  277 

brella-like  gusts  from  the  roof-tree ;  it  meets  you  at 
the  door,  and  looks  out  of  the  window ;  so  that  you 
can  seldom  divest  yourself  of  the  suspicion  that  there 
must  be  something  smouldering  somewhere  which 
will  blaze  out  shortly — which  there  frequently  is,  and 
does.  Now  for  the  peetch  in  its  entirety.  Keep  the 
ecclesiastical  image  strongly  in  your  mind ;  for  here 
is  the  high  square  tower,  and  there  the  long-bodied 
choir  and  aisles.  But  you  are  to  remember  that  the 
peetch  is  composed  of  two  separate  parts  of  separ- 
ate nationalities.  The  long  body  is  simply  the  old 
Russian  stove — a  hot  sarcophagus — a  brick  coffin 
with  fire  matter  within,  like  that  of  a  dead  man 
who  burns  before  his  time.  This  simple  brick  vault 
full  of  combustion,  dates  from  the  earliest  period  of 
authentic  Muscovite  research.  It  is  the  very  same 
stove  that  was  used  in  the  days  of  Rurik,  and  the 
Patriarch  Nikon,  and  Fedor-Borissovitch.  It  is  the 
very  same  stove,  that  the  most  savage  of  savage 
tribes  would  almost  intuitively  construct, — a  hole 
dug  in  the  ground,  a  framework  of  branches,  the 
food  and  fuel  placed  upon  it,  and  the  whole  covered 
in  with  a  roof  of  boughs  and  clay  plastered  over  it. 
Not  that  boughs,  or  branches,  or  wet  clay,  enter  into 
the  architecture  of  the  actual  Russian  stove ;  but 
the  principle  is  the  same.  And  I  am  not  covertly 
insisting  on  the  barbarism  of  the  Russian  people 
because  their  stove  is  so  simple.  What  is  our 
famous  and  boasted  Register  Stove,  or  Rippon  and 
Burton's  improved  grate,  but  a  hole  in  the  wall, 
with  a  fire-receiver  uniting  the  capacities  of  an 
elliptical  St.  Lawrence's  gridiron  and  a  distorted 


278  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

birdcage  ?  What  is  the  French  fireplace  but  a 
yawning  cavern,  with  logs  on  dogs,  in  the  most 
primitive  style  of  adjustment?  What  is  the  French 
poele,  or  stove,  but  a  column  of  St.  Simeon  Stylites, 
with  a  pedestal  rather  too  hot  for  the  feet  of  the 
saint,  and  an  iron  tail  curling  the  wrong  way? 
What  is  the  Belgian  stove,  which  advances  so  im- 
pertinently into  the  very  middle  of  your  chamber, 
but  a  lady's  work-table  in  cast-iron,  and  with  bandy 
legs  ?  What  is  the  German  stove  but  a  species  of 
hot-pump,  insufferably  conceited  and  arrogant — 
turning  up  its  white  porcelain  nose  in  a  corner  of 
the  room,  and  burning  timber  living,  I  may  so  call 
it,  at  the  rate  of  two  Prussian  dollars  a  day? 
There  is,  indeed,  a  stove  I  love ;  a  fireplace,  which 
combines  mental  improvement  and  instruction  with 
the  advantages  of  physical  warmth  and  light.  This 
is  the  fireplace  whose  sides  are  lined  with  the  old 
Dutch  tiles.  In  glorious  blue  and  white,  there  were 
on  these  tiles  depicted  good  and  moving  histories. 
Joseph  was  sold  to  his  brethren  on  these  tiles  ;  An- 
anias came  to  a  bad  end,  together  with  his  wife 
Sapphira,  for  saying  the  thing  that  was  not ;  the 
Good  Samaritan  left  a  cerulean  twopence  at  a 
smoke-dried  inn  ;  and  jolly  Squire  Boaz  met  Ruth 
a-gleaning,  and  at  once  inspired  a  Hebrew  poet  to 
write  the  most  charming  pastoral  in  the  world,  and 
inspired  an  Irish  copyist  to  compose  the  libretto  of 
the  opera  of  "  Rosina."  There  are  no  fire-places 
with  Dutch  tiles  now.  I  have  been  in  Holland ; 
and,  in  their  rooms,  they  have  register  stoves,  and 
Simeon  Stylites'  columns.  I  can  forgive  almost 


KUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  279 

that  Dutch-built  King  of  England  who  threw  our 
Art  back  half  a  century — I  mean  William  the 
Third — who  spoilt  the  Tower  of  London,  intro- 
duced the  cat-o'-nine-tails  into  the  English  navy, 
would  never  go  to  the  theatre,  and  wouldn't  let  his 
gentle  wife  have  any  green  peas,  for  the  one  and 
simple  fact  that  it  was  in  his  reign  that  fireplaces 
with  Dutch  tile-linings  became  common  in  England. 
From  these  fire-places,  with  their  white  and  blue 
Scripture  stories,  little  Philip  Doddridge  and  little 
Sam  Wesley  learnt,  at  their  mother's  knees,  lessons 
of  truth  and  love  and  mercy.  There  are  no  Dod- 
dridges  and  Wesleys  to  expound  to  us  now.  Dod- 
dridge is  a  dean  with  two  thousand  a  year,  busily 
occupied  in  editing  Confucius  and  defending  bad 
smells ;  and  Wesley  is  a  clown  who  sings  a  sacred 
Tippetywitchet  in  a  music-hall  where  people  are 
killed.  Least  of  all  I  am  entitled  to  accuse  the 
Russians  of  uncivilization  in  their  stone  building, 
seeing  that  their  method  of  keeping  the  burning 
game  alive  is  nearly  identical  with  the  process 
adopted  by  the  shepherds  on  the  melancholy  downs 
of  Hampshire  and  Sussex.  The  Corydon  with  the 
crook,  and  with  the  ragged  smock-frock  and  the 
eight  shillings  a  week,  takes  Monsieur  Hedgehog, 
covers  him  up  with  clay — how  Russian !  sticks  him 
in  a  hole  in  the  ground,  which  he  fills  up  with  fire, 
and  then  covers  that  up  with  clay  and  turf  again ; 
and  capital  eating — hot,  succulent,  and  gravy-yield- 
ing, is  this  same  Signor  Hedgehog,  when  you  dig 
him  out  of  the  clay  again.  Such  a  hedgehog  din- 
ner with  a  shepherd  on  a  lonely  down,  a  wise  dog 


280  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

sitting  about  two  yards  off,  now  sniffing  the  hot 
regale,  and  sententiously  anticipatory  of  bones  and 
fragments,  now  wriggling  that  sapient  nozzle  of  his 
in  the  ambient  air  as  if  his  scent  were  seven-league 
reaching,  and  he  could  smell  out  mutton  misbehav- 
ing itself  miles  off,  now  casting  a  watchful  back- 
handed eye — I  mean,  by  the  misnomer,  when  the 
optic  is  cast  back  by  a  half-upwards,  half-sideways 
jerk  of  the  head — upon  the  silly  sheep — silly  enough 
to  eat  their  perpetual  salad  without  asking  for  Doc- 
tor Kitchener's  mixture ;  silly  enough  to  be  made 
into  continual  chops  without  remembering  that  there 
is  many  a  ram  who  is  more  than  a  match  for  a  man. 
Such  a  noontide  meal — a  gray  sky  above,  and  a 
neutral  tint  in  the  perspective,  discreet  silence  dur- 
ing the  repast,  monosyllabic  conversation  and  a 
short  pipe  afterwards — is  a  most  philosophical  and 
instructive  entertainment.  The  edge  is  rather  taken 
off  the  Aristotelian  aspect  of  the  encounter  when 
the  shepherd,  like  the  needy  knife-grinder,  asks  you 
for  sixpence  for  a  pot  of  beer,  to  drink  your  honour's 
health  in. 

On  the  long  body  of  the  stove,  the  Russian  peas- 
ant dozes  in  summer,  and  sleeps  without  disguise  in 
winter.  When  his  miserable  life  is  over  they  lay 
him  out — that  is,  they  pull  his  legs,  and  try  to  un- 
crisp  his  fingers,  and  tie  his  jaw  up  with  a  stocking, 
and  put  a  copeck  on  each  eyelid,  and  press  a  painted 
image  to  his  senseless  lip,  and  place  an  iron  trencher, 
with  bread  and  salt  on  it,  on  his  breast,  and  don't 
wash  him — on  the  stove ;  if  there  happens  to  be  a 
scarcity  of  tables  in  the  mansion.  On  the  top  of 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  281 

the  stove  the  mother  makes  her  elder  children  hold 
down  her  younger  children  to  be  beaten — it  is  almost 
as  convenient  for  that  purpose  as  the  bench  in  the 
yard  of  a  police-gaol ;  on  the  top  of  the  stove,  Ivan 
Ivanovitch  and  Dmitri  Djorjevitch  lean  on  their 
elbows  with  beakers  of  quass,  and  saucers  full  of 
salted  cucumbers  between,  disputing  over  knavish 
bargains,  making  abstruse  calculations  upon  their 
inky-nailed  fingers  with  much  quickness,  taking  the 
name  of  their  Lord  in  vain  to  prove  the  verity  of 
assertions  to  which  Barabbas  is  one  party  and  Judas 
the  other ;  and  ultimately  interchanging  dirty  rags 
of  rouble  notes,  with  grins  and  shrugs,  and  spittings 
and  crossings.  I  have  previously  had  occasion  to 
remark  that  the  only  test  exercised  by  the  unedu- 
cated Russians,  as  regards  the  value  of  a  bank-note, 
is  in  its  colour.  The  fifty  rouble  note  is  gray  ;  the 
twenty-five  rouble  note  is  violet ;  the  ten  ditto,  red  ; 
the  five  ditto,  blue ;  the  three  ditto,  green  ;  lastly, 
the  one  rouble  note  is  a  yellowish  brown.  You  fre- 
quently hear  a  moujik  say,  "  I  earned  a  blue  yester- 
day ; "  "  he  has  stolen  a  red ; "  "  he  lost  a  brown," 
&c.  A  monetary  dispute  between  two  Russians 
frequently  concludes  by  the  disputants  embracing 
and  mutually  treating  each  other  to  liquor ;  in  such 
a  case,  you  may  be  perfectly  certain  that  both  par- 
ties— A  and  B — have  made  a  good  thing  of  it ;  but 
that  some  third  party,  not  present, — say  C — has 
been  most  awfully  robbed,  swindled,  and  cozened 
in  the  transaction.  On  the  flat  roof  of  the  stove, 
finally,  the  Russian  peasant  is  supposed  to  pass  the 
only  happy  period  of  his  life — that  of  his  dozing 


282  A   JOUKNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

slumbers.  And  it  is  positively — I  have  heard  it  from 
all  sorts  of  differently  actuated  informants,  hundreds 
of  times — a  standard  and  deeply  rooted  impression 
or  superstition  with  the  moujik,  call  it  which  you 
will,  that  while  he  is  in  dreamland,  he  really  walks 
and  talks,  and  eats  and  drinks,  and  loves,  and  is 
free,  and  enjoys  himself;  and  that  his  waking  life — 
the  life  in  which  he  is  kicked,  and  pinched,  and  flog- 
ged, and  not  paid — is  only  an  ugly  nightmare, 
which  God  in  his  mercy  will  dispel  some  day. 

Rashly  have  I  said  that  the  top  of  the  stove  is  the 
only  place  (saving  the  vodki  shop ;  that  exception  is 
always  to  be  assumed)  where  the  Russian  peasant 
can  enjoy  himself.  At  the  bottom  of  the  peetch, 
likewise,  can  he  enjoy  the  dulce  desipere  in  loco. 
For,  as  between  the  floor  of  the  outer  house  itself 
and  our  mother  earth  there  is  an  open  basement,  or 
glory  hole,  so  between  the  bottom  of  the  stove  and 
the  flooring  there  is  also  a  longitudinal  cavity  ;  some 
fourteen  inches  high,  perhaps,  and  some  five  feet 
and  a  half  long ;  the  depth,  of  course,  corresponding 
to  that  of  the  peetch,  which  is  ordinarily  about  forty 
inches  wide  at  the  top.  Within  this  cavity,  on  ordi- 
nary days,  odd  matters  are  thrust — immondices  of 
every  description,  broomsticks,  buckets,  and  coils  of 
rope.  It  is  the  sort  of  cavity  where  ravens  might 
establish  a  joint-stock  bank  for  savings,  and  rob  each 
other,  as  directors  and  shareholders,  dreadfully.  I 
have  passed  over  the  standing  armies  of  vermin, 
who — if  it  be  not  inconsistent  to  say  so — lie  there 
armed  cap-a-pie.  But  once  a  week,  Ivan  Ivano- 
vitch,  the  moujik," having  divested  himself  of  every 


RUSSIANS   AT   HOME.  283 

article  of  clothing,  crawls  into  this  longitudinal  cav- 
ity, and  there  lies  till  he  is  half-suffocated.  On 
emerging  from  this  oven,  the  Baba  Tatiana,  his 
wife,  douses  him  with  pails  of  hot  water,  till  he  is 
half-drowned.  He  speedily  reenters  into  his  clothes, 
which  have  been  neatly  baking  in  the  front  part  of 
the  stove,  to  kill  the  vermin ;  and  this  is  the  Russian 
bath.  If  the  fortunate  moujik  be  a  starosta,  or  at 
all  removed  from  the  usual  abject  poverty,  he  will 
have,  in  lieu  of  this,  a  sort  of'  hot-brick  kennel  built 
in  his  backyard,  by  the  side  of  his  pigstye  and  his 
dung  and  dust  heap ;  and  this,  with  a  small  ante- 
chamber for  dousing  purposes,  forms  his  vapour- 
bath.  The  hole  under  the  stove,  however,  and  the 
hot-water  pail  afterwards,  with  a  bucket  of  nice  cold 
water  occasionally,  are  the  most  popular  compo- 
nents of  a  Ruski  banyi,  or  Russian  bath.  Baking 
wearing  apparel,  in  order  to  divest  it  of  its  animated 
lining,  was,  I  was  inclined  to  think  before  I  visited 
Russia,  a  device  confined  to  our  English  gaols  and 
houses  of  correction.  The  first  intimation  I  had  of 
the  practice  being  to  the  manner  born  in  Muscovy, 
was  apropos  of  a  tea-party.  The  lady  of  the  house 
where  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  receive  that  pleas- 
ant hospitality,  had  sent  her  little  boy  out  for  some 
tea-cakes;  and  as  the  Russian  high-priced  flour  is 
the  best  in  the  world,  and  the  Esthonian  and  Livo- 
nian  bakers,  who  almost  monopolize  the  baking 
trade  in  St.  Petersburg,  are  most  cunning  in  their 
art,  the  substitutes  for  Sally  Lunns  are  delicious. 
The  little  boy  came  back  betimes  with  a  bag  of  tea- 
cakes,  and  a  very  pale  and  frightened  face,  and  being 


284  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

questioned,  said  that  he  had  wandered,  through  curi- 
osity, into  the  bakehouse,  and  that  there  was  a 
man's  head  in  the  oven.  He  was  sure  it  was  a 
head,  he  reiterated,  because  he  wore  a  hat.  Where- 
upon a  Russian  gentleman  who  was  present  burst 
out  into  loud  laughter,  and  deigned  to  explain  to  us 
that,  among  us  gens  du  peuple  it  was  a  common 
custom  to  send  a  hat  to  the  baker's  when  the  little 
animals  signifying  love,  who  boarded  and  lodged 
within  it,  became  too  troublesome.  I  know  that  the 
horrible  story  spoilt  my  appetite  for  Sally  Lunns 
that  evening,  and  my  tea  too,  though  it  was  of  the 
very  best — from  Poudachoff 's,  and  cost  eight  roubles 
a  pound. 

Now  for  a  word  concerning  the  square  church- 
tower.  This  is  called  the  Poele  Hollandaise  or  Am- 
sterdam stove,  and  was  brought  from  the  land  of 
dykes  and  dams  by  the  all-observant  Peter  the  Great. 
Breast  high  in  this  Amsterdam  stove,  is  the  ordinary 
continental  cooking  apparatus,  with  circular  cavities 
for  the  saucepans  and  bainmari  pans,  should  he 
happen  to  possess  any.  Underneath,  at  about  six 
inches  height  from  the  ground,  is  the  range  of  family 
vaults;  a  longitudinal  tunnel  extending  the  entire 
length  of  the  stove,  and  heating  the  whole  fabric. 
This  is  filled,  every  other  day  or  so,  with  logs  of 
timber,  chopped  to  about  the  size  of  an  English  con- 
stable's police  baton.  The  apertures  of  the  stove 
are  left  open  until  this  fuel  attains  a  thoroughly  red 
heat,  and  no  more  gas  can  be  emitted ;  all  is  then 
carefully  closed  up.  The  stove  is,  in  fact,  nothing 
but  a  brick  brazier  of  charcoal ;  but  I  am  almost 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  285 

willing  to  believe,  as  the  Russians  proudly  boast, 
that  they  have  some  peculiar  art  and  secret  in  the 
construction  of  stoves ;  for  I  have  never  heard  of 
any  cases  of  asphyxia  through  their  use.  The  sam- 
ovar, too,  which  is  apparently  a  most  deadly  piece 
of  copper-smithery,  is  usually  found  to  be  innox- 
ious ;  though  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  either  a 
Russian  stove  or  a  Russian  tea-urn  would  very  soon 
make  cold  meat  of  a  small  tea-party  in  Western 
Europe.  When  the  fuel  is  out  in  the  long  tunnel, 
and  pending  a  fresh  supply,  then  is  the  time  for 
the  thrifty  Baba,  or  moujik's  housewife,  to  bake  the 
rye-bread.  She  is  quite  ignorant  of  the  use  and 
appliance  of  the  domestic  spatula,  or  baker's  peel. 
She  pokes  the  bread  in  with  a  broomstick,  and  fishes 
it  out  with  a  long  instrument,  which,  for  a  long 
time,  I  considered  to  be  a  mere  agricultural  stimu- 
lant to  hay,  to  wit,  a  pitchfork,  but  which  I  was 
afterwards  told  was  specially  devoted  to  the  removal 
of  the  bread  from  this  primitive  oven. 

An  old  Russian  peasant-man  who  almost  dotes, 
and  a  drunken  varlet  floundering  on  a  bed,  are  all 
that  we  have  seen  yet  human  in  Volno'i.  Sophron 
and  the  Starosta  shall  now  give  place  to  the  wives, 
the  children,  and  the  young  maidens  of  the  Sloboda ; 
yet,  when  I  come  to  tackle  them,  my  ambition  to 
possess  pictorial  talent  sensibly  diminishes — so  little 
rosiness,  so  little  beauty,  so  few  smiles  have  claims 
upon  my  palette  among  the  youngest  women  and 
girls. 

It  is  to  be  understood,  that  I  have  long  since  given 
up,  and  no  more  insist  on,  that  long  and  fondly- 


286  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NOKTH. 

preserved  Annual  tradition  of  the  beauty  of  peasant 
girls,  the  merry  ways  of  peasant  children,  the  pretti- 
ness  of  villages,  the  picturesqueness  of  peasant  cos- 
tume. I  have  buried  the  fallacious  tradition  along 
with  other  illusions.  I  give  up  pifferari,  the  Salta- 
rella,  purple  vines,  the  rayed  petticoats,  and  miniature 
tablecloth  head-dresses  of  Italian  Contadine,  the 
harvesters  of  Leopold  Robert,  the  brigands  of  Pinelli, 
the  high-laced  caps  and  shining  sabots  of  little  Nor- 
mande  paysannes,  the  pretty  Welsh  girl  with  a 
man's  hat,  the  skirt  of  her  gown  drawn  through  the 
pocket-holes,  and  a  goat  following  at  her  heels  ;  the 
lustrous  eyes  and  henna-tipped  fingers  of  Turkish 
women,  the  pretty  bare  feet  and  long  dark  hair  of 
the  maids  of  Connaught,  the  buy-a-broom  quaint- 
ness  of  the  yellow-haired  Alsaciennes,  the  ribboned 
boddices,  straw  hats,  and  chintz  skirts  of  our  own 
comely  peasant  girls  in  merry  England.  I  know  how 
melancholy  are  the  habitations  and  ways  of  poverty. 
I  know  that  Blankanese  flower-girls,  Contadine, 
Normande  paysannes,  Turkish  houris,  Connaught 
maidens,  barefooted  and  beauteous,  are  conventional 
artificialities,  made  to  order,  exhibited,  ticketed,  and 
appraised,  for  the  benefit  of  artists'  studios,  aristo- 
cratic families  who  like  Norman  wet-nurses,  writers 
of  oriental  poems,  the  frequenters  of  the  Alster  Bas- 
sin  promenade  at  Hamburg,  and  the  artists  who 
illustrate  the  wild  Irish  novels. 

So,  prepared  for  the  prosaic,  I  am  not  disappointed 
at  as  great  a  paucity  of  the  beautiful  as  of  the  pic- 
turesque among  Russian  peasant  women.  But,  as 
in  the  homeliest,  plainest  villages  in  the  west,  I  have 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  287 

seen  and  delighted  in  some  rough  gayety,  and  an 
unpretending  neatness  and  a  ruddy  comeliness,  that 
to  me  compensated  for  any  absent  amount  of  Annu- 
alism  in  feature,  form,  or  attire,  I  cannot  avoid  feel- 
ing as  though  I  had  swallowed  the  contents  of  a 
belt  of  Number-four  shot — so  heavy  am  I — when  I 
consider  the  women  and  children  here.  The  negro 
slave  will  laugh,  and  jest,  and  show  all  his  white 
teeth,  before  half  the  wounds  from  his  last  cutting- 
up  are  healed ;  but  the  Russian  peasant,  male  or 
female,  is — when  sober — always  mournful,  dejected, 
doleful.  All  the  songs  he  sings  are  monotonous 
complaints,  drawling,  pining,  and  despairing.  You 
have  heard  how  the  Swiss  soldiers  used  to  weep 
and  die  sometimes  for  homesickness  at  the  notes  of 
the  Ranz  des  Vaches.  The  Muscovite  moujik  has 
a  perpetual  home-sickness  upon  him ;  but  it  is  a 
sickness,  not  for,  but  of  his  home.  He  is  sick  of  his 
life  and  of  himself.  When  drunk,  only,  the  Russian 
peasant  lights  up  into  a  feeble  corpse-candle  sort  of 
gayety ;  but  it  is  temporary  and  transient,  and  he 
sobers  himself  in  sackcloth  and  ashes. 

Home  is  not  as  a  home  held  by  in  any  class  in 
Russia.  It  very  rarely  happens  that  moujiks  who 
from  serfs  have  become  merchants  of  the  second 
guild,  and  amassed  large  fortunes,  ever  think  in  their 
declining  days  of  retiring  to  the  village  which  has 
given  them  birth,  or  even  of  making  bequests  bene- 
ficial to  their  native  place  at  their  death.  Soldiers 
too,  when  discharged  after  their  time  of  service  has 
expired,  scarcely  ever  return  to  their  village.  .They 
prefer  becoming  servants  and  Dvorniks  in  the  large 


288  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

towns.  "  Eh !  and  what  would  you  have  them 
do?"  a  vivacious  Russian  gentleman,  with  whom 
I  had  been  conversing  on  the  subject,  asked  me. 
They  are  no  longer  serfs,  and  are  of  no  use  to  their 
seigneur.  They  are  no  longer  young,  and  are  no 
longer  wanted  for  the  conscription.  What  would 
you  have  them  do  in  this  village  of  yours  ?  What 
indeed?  Governmentally -inclined  philosophers  say 
that  the  Russians  are  so  patriotic  that  home  is  home 
to  them,  "be  it  ever  so  homely,"  throughout  the 
whole  extent  of  the  empire,  and  that  they  are  as 
much  at  home  in  the  steppes  of  the  Ukraine  as  in 
the  morasses  of  Lake  Lodoga.  I  am  of  opinion 
myself,  that  the  homely  feeling  does  not  exist  at  all 
among  the  Russian  people.  Russian  military  officers 
have  told  me  that  an  epidemic  melancholia  some- 
times breaks  out  among  young  recruits  which  is 
broadly  qualified  as  a  Mai  du  Pays ;  but  I  think  it 
might  be  far  better  described  as  a  Mai  de  Position. 
The  position  of  a  recruit  for  the  first  six  months  of 
his  apprenticeship  is,  perhaps,  the  most  intolerable 
and  infernal  noviciate  which  a  human  being  can 
well  suffer — a  combination  of  the  situation  of  the 
young  bear  with  all  his  troubles  to  come,  the  mon- 
key upon  that  well-known  allowance  of  many  kicks 
and  few  halfpence,  the  hedgehog  with  his  prickles 
inwards,  instead  of  outwards,  and  the  anti-slavery 
preacher  whose  suit  of  tar  and  feathers  is  just  begin- 
ning to  peel  off.  When,  however,  the  recruit  has 
swallowed  sufficient  stick,  he  very  soon  gets  over  his 
Mai  du  Pays.  Rationally  envisaging  the  question 
of  home-loving  in  nationalities,  the  Great  Britons 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  289 

(English,  Irish,  and  Scotch),  though  the  greatest 
travellers  and  longest  residents  abroad,  are  the  peo- 
ple most  remarkable  for  a  steadfast  love  for  their 
home,  and  a  steadfast  determination  to  return  to  it  at 
some  time  or  another.  After  them  must  be  ranked 
the  French,  who  always  preserve  an  affectionate  rev- 
erence for  their  pays  ;  but  for  all  the  sentimental 
Vaterland  and  Suce-Heimweg  songs  of  the  Ger- 
mans, the  hundreds  of  German  tailors,  bootmakers, 
and  watchmakers,  one  finds  in  every  European  capi- 
tal, seem  to  get  on  very  well — at  least,  up  to  three- 
score and  ten,  or  thereabouts — without  looking  for- 
ward to  a  return  home.  Your  Dane  or  Swede,  so 
long  as  he  remains  in  his  own  land,  is  very  fond  of 
it;  but,  once  persuaded  to  quit  it,  he  thoroughly 
naturalizes  himself  in  the  country  which  he  has 
adopted,  and  forgets  all  about  Denmark  and  Swe- 
den. As  to  the  Americans,  they  never  have  any 
homes.  They  locate ;  and  as  gladly  locate  at  Spitz- 
bergen  as  at  Hartford,  Connecticut.  The  Poles,  per- 
haps, are  really  attached  to  home ;  but  the  Czar  is 
in  possession;  and  we  know  that  the  most  home- 
loving  Briton  would  be  loth  to  go  back  to  his  little 
house  in  Camberwell  if  he  was  aware  of  an  abhor- 
rent broker's  man  sitting  in  the  front  parlour. 

There  is  a  Baba,  a  peasant  girl,  who  is  sitting 
listlessly  on  a  rough-hewn  bench  at  the  door  of  one 
of  the  homogeneous  hovels.  She  is  not  quite  un- 
occupied, for  she  has  the  head  of  a  gawky  girl  of  ten 
on  her  knee,  and  is — well,  I  need  not  describe  the 
universal  pastime  with  which  uncleanly  nations  fill 
up  their  leisure  time. 

13 


290  A  JOURNEY   DUB   NORTH. 

The  Baba  is  of  middle  size  ;  a  strong,  well-hung, 
likely  wench  enough.  Her  face  and  arms  are  burnt 
to  a  most  disagreeable  tawny,  tan  brown  :  the  colour 
of  the  pigskin  of  a  second-hand  saddle  that  has  been 
hanging  for  months — exposed  to  every  weather — 
outside  a  broker's  shop  in  Vinegar  Yard,  Drury 
Lane,  London,  is,  perhaps,  the  closest  image  I  can 
give  of  her  face's  hue.  Nay;  there  is  a  wood,  or 
rather  preparation  of  wood,  used  by  upholsterers — 
not  rosewood,  ebony,  mahogany,  walnut,  oak,  but  a 
fictitiously  browned,  ligneous  substance,  called  Pem- 
broke. I  have  seen  it,  at  sales,  go  in  the  guise  of  a 
round  table  for  one  pound  nine.  I  mind  it  in  cata- 
logues :  pembroke  chest  of  drawers — pembroke  work- 
table.  I  know  its  unwholesome  colour,  and  dully, 
blinking  sheen,  which  no  beeswax,  no  household- 
stuff,  no  wash-leather  can  raise  to  a  generous  polish. 
Pembroke  is  the  Russian  peasant  complexion.  The 
forehead  low  and  receding.  The  roots  of  the  hair  of 
a  dirty  straw-colour,  (growing  in  alarmingly  close 
proximity  to  the  eyebrows,  as  if  they  were  originally 
the  "  same  concern,"  and  the  low  forehead  a  bone  of 
contention  which  had  grown  up  between  them  and 
dissolved  the  partnership.)  Set  very  close  together, 
in  this  brown  face,  are  two  eyes — respectable  as  to 
size — and  light-blue  in  colour,  which,  as  the  orbs 
themselves  are  quite  lustreless  and  void  of  specula- 
tion, has  a  very  weird — not  to  say  horrifying — effect. 
The  nose  broad,  thick,  unshapely,  as  if  the  os-nasi 
had  been  suddenly  covered  up  with  a  lump  of  clay, 
but  that  no  refinements  of  moulding,  no  hesitating 
compromises  between  the  Roman,  the  pug,  and  the 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  291 

snub  had  been  gone  through.  It  is  as  though  Na- 
ture had  done  some  million  of  these  noses  by  con- 
tract, and  they  had  been  clapped  indiscriminately 
on  as  many  million  moujik  faces.  Not  to  grow 
Slawkenbergian  on  the  subject  of  noses,  I  may  con- 
clude, nasally,  by  remarking  that  the  nostrils  are 
wide  apart — quite  circular — and  seemingly  punched, 
rather  than  perforated,  with  a  violent  contempt  of 
reference  to  the  requirements  of  symmetry  of  posi- 
tion. The  mouth  is  not  bad, — lips  red  enough — 
teeth  remarkably  sound  and  white — and  the  entire 
features  would  be  pleasant,  but  that  the  mouth- 
corners  are  drawn  down,  and  that  the  under  lip  is 
pendulous — not  sensuously,  but  senselessly.  The 
chin  has  a  curious  triangular  dimple  in  the  centre ; 
for  all  the  organs  of  hearing  visible,  the  Baba  might 
be  as  earless — she  is  certainly  as  unabashed — as 
Defoe ;  the  neck  is  the  unmitigated  bull  pattern  : 
short,  clumsy,  thick-set,  and  not,  I  am  afraid,  very 
graceful  in  a  young  female;  the  shoulders  broad 
and  rounded  (that  back  is  well  accustomed  to  carry- 
ing burdens,  and  prodigious  burdens  the  Russian 
women  do  carry  sometimes) ;  the  feet  are  large,  long, 
and  flat,  the  hands  not  very  large,  but  terribly  cor- 
rugated as  to  their  visible  venous  economy.  How 
could  it  be  otherwise,  when  every  species  of  manual 
labour  (they  build  log-houses,  though  I  have  not 
seen  them  lay  bricks)  except  horse-driving,  is  shared 
with  the  ruder  sex  by  women  ?  The  Babas  of  a 
Russian  village  have  their  specially  feminine  em- 
ployments, it  is  true.  They  may  spin  flax ;  they 
may  weave  ;  they  may  cook ;  they  may  wash  linen  ; 


292  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

but  it  is  at  the  sole  will  and  pleasure  of  the  seigneur 
or  the  bourmister,  if  they  are  in  Corvee  to  him,  to 
set  them  tasks  of  sawing  wood,  or  plastering  walls, 
or  dragging  trucks,  or  whatever  else  may  suit  his 
seignoral  or  bourmistral  caprice.  If  the  Baba,  or  her 
husband,  or  father,  or  whoever  else  owns  her  labour 
— for  an  independent  spinster,  an  unprotected  Rus- 
sian female  is,  save  in  the  upper  classes,  not  to  be 
found — is  at  obrok,  instead  of  corvee,  the  employ- 
ments he  may  give  to  his  Baba  may  be  even  more 
miscellaneous.  I  have  seen  women  in  Russia  occu- 
pied in  the  most  incongruous  manner ;  standing  on 
ladders,  whitewashing,  sweeping  streets,  hammering 
at  pots  and  kettles,  like  tinkers;  driving  pigs;  and, 
in  the  Gostinnoi-dvors,  selling  second-hand  goods 
by  auction  ? 

I  have  alluded  to  the  Baba's  feet.  The  Russian 
nobility  are  as  sensitive  as  the  late  Lord  Byron  as 
to  the  aristocratic  presages  to  be  drawn  from  a 
small  hand  and  foot.  I  -have  frequently  heard  in 
Russian  society  that  genteel  dictum  common  in 
England,  that  no  person  can  be  well-born  unless 
water  will  flow  beneath  the  arch  of  his  instep  with- 
out wetting  it.  I  believe  that  in  the  short  reign  of 
his  late  Majesty  Richard,  third  of  that  name,  similar 
notions  began  to  be  entertained  in  polite  society 
•with  reference  to  humps. 

The  Baba's  dress  is  not  pretty.  To  do  her  jus- 
tice, though,  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  as 
to  her  possession  of — well,  not  a  shirt — that  is  a 

masculine  garment,  but  a ,  but  it  is  unpardonable 

to  mention  in  English  what  every  English  lady  will 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  293 

name  in  the  French  language  without  a  shadow  of 
hesitation — well :  a  white  cotton  or  very  coarse 
linen  under-garment.  And  this  ordinarily  inner- 
most garment  is  very  liberally  displayed  ;  for  the 
gown-sleeves  are  very  scanty — mere  shoulder-straps, 
in  fact :  and  the  real  sleeves  are  those  of  the  under- 
garment, to  name  which,  is  to  run  in  peril  of  depor- 
tation to  that  Cayenne  of  conversaziones — Coventry. 
There  is  an  equally  generous  display  of  body  linen, 
more  or  less  dazzlingly  white  in  front, — the  garment 
forming  an  ample  gorget  from  the  neck  to  the  waist, 
the  bust  of  the  gown  being  cut  square,  of  the  an- 
tique form,  with  which  you  are  familiar  in  the  por- 
traits of  Anne  Boleyn,  but  very  much  lower.  In 
aristocratic  Russian  society  the  ladies  have  their 
necks  and  shoulders  as  dtcolletees  as  the  best  mod- 
ern milliner  among  us  could  desire ;  and  in  aristo- 
cratic Russian  theatres  the  ballerine  are  as  scantily 
draped  as  at  home  here ;  but,  among  the  gens  du 
peuple,  remnants  of  oriental  jealousy  and  seclusion 
of  women  are  very  perceptible,  and  the  forms  are 
studiously  concealed.  But  for  an  eccentricity  of 
attire,  I  am  about  to  point  out,  high  boots,  long 
skirts,  and  high  necks  are  productive  of  a  most 
exemplary  shapelessness  and  repudiation  of  any 
Venus-like  toilettes,  as  arranged  by  those  eminent 
modistes,  the  Mademoiselles  Graces. 

This  trifling  eccentricity  consists  in  the  Russian 
peasant  women  having  a  most  bewildering  custom 
of  wearing  a  very  tight  waist  at  mid-neck,  and  a 
very  full  bust  at  the  waist.  Their  corsage  presents 
the  aspect  of  the  section  of  a  very  ripe,  full  pear, 


294  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

resting  on  its  base.  Beneath  the  clavicles  all  is  as 
flat  as  a  pancake ;  where  we  expect  to  profit  by  the 
triumphs  of  tight-lacing  as  productive  or  a  genteel 
and  wasp-like  waist,  we  find  this  astonishing  pro- 
tuberance. The  waist  is  upside  down.  How  they 
manage  to  accomplish  this  astonishing  feat ;  whether 
they  lacteally  nourish  dumb-bells  or  babies  made  of 
pig-lead ;  whether  it  be  physical  malformation,  or 
some  cunning  sub-camicial  strapping  and  bandag- 
ing ;  whether  it  be  the  effect  of  one  or  of  all  these,  I 
am  not  aware  ;  but  there  is  that  effect  in  the  Baba — 
baffling,  puzzling,  and  to  me  as  irritating  as  though 
the  girl  wore  a  shoe  on  her  head,  or  broad-brimmed 
hats  on  her  feet.  (There  is,  by  the  way,  really  a 
shoe-shaped  coiffure  prevalent  among  the  peasant 
girls  of  Tarjok  and  Twer.  They  do  not  wear  the 
kakoschnik,  but  in  lieu  of  that  picturesque  head- 
dress they  assume  a  tall  conical  structure  of  paste- 
board, covered,  according  to  their  means,  with  col- 
oured stuff,  silk  or  velvet,  and  ornamented  with  rib- 
bons, spangles,  bits  of  coloured  glass,  and  small 
coins.  The  apex  of  the  sugar-loaf  cap  leans  forward 
curvilineally,  and  then  is  again  turned  up  at  the 
extreme  peak,  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  a  Turkish 
slipper  or  papousch.  This  when,  as  is  frequently 
the  case,  it  has  a  streaming  veil  behind,  bears  a 
quaint  resemblance  to  the  old  peaked  head-dresses 
we  see  in  STRUTT.)  Why  am  I  now  irritated  be- 
cause this  Russian  slave-woman  chooses  to  go  into 
a  feeble-minded  course  of  ridiculous  deformity  ? 
She  is  not  one  whit  more  absurd,  or  more  deformed, 
than  the  high-born  ladies  in  the  West,  with  the  hair 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  295 

so  scragged  off  their  sheep's  heads,  with  the  watch- 
glass  waists,  with  the  men's  coats  and  tails  and  big 
buttons,  with  the  concave  pancakes  for  hats ;  with 
the  eleven  balloon-skirts  one  above  another,  one  I 
presume,  of  wood,  one  of  block-tin,  one  of  steel,  one 
of  whalebone,  one  (I  know)  of  the  horse,  another 
(may  be)  of  the  cat ;  a  seventh,  perchance,  of  the 
nether-millstone.  Now  I  think  of  it,  I  am  more, 
much  more,  irritated  at  the  Guys,  who  go  about 
civilized  streets, — the  Guys  who  ought  to  be  beauti- 
tiful  women.  I  cry  out  loudly  against  the  fashions 
at  noon-day.  I  clench  my  fist  on  the  public  pave- 
ment. I  dare  say  the  police  have  noticed  me.  I 
feel  inclined  to  pull  off  my  shoes,  like  George  Fox, 
the  roaring  Quaker,  and  walk  through  the  streets  of 
Lichfield,  or  London,  or  Paris,  crying,  Woe !  to  the 
wicked  city. 

On  her  head,  the  Baba  wears  a  very  old,  foul, 
dingy,  frayed,  and  sleezy  yellow  shawl,  tied  care- 
lessly under  her  head,  in  a  knot  like  a  prize-fighter's 
fist ;  one  peak  of  which  shawl  falls  over  her  head, 
on  to  her  back,  like  the  peak  of  the  cagoule  of  a 
black  penitent.  It  is  a  very  ugly,  dirty,  head-cover- 
ing :  with  a  tartan  pattern  it  would  be  first-cousin 
to  the  snood  of  a  Highland  shepherdess,  and  it  is 
even  more  closely  related,  in  general  arrangement, 
to  the  unsightly  head-shawl  worn  by  the  factory- 
girls  of  Blackpool  and  Oldham.  But,  this  is  only 
her  every-day  head-dress.  For  Sundays  and  feast- 
days  she  has  the  kakoschnik,  than  which  no  prettier 
or  gracefuller  coiffure  could  be  found,  after  the 
jewelled  turban  of  the  Turkish  Sultana  has  been 


296  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

admitted  as  the  pearl  of  pearls,  and  light  of  the 
harem  of  beauty  and  grace. 

The  kakoschnik  is  a  shallow  shako,  (that  worn  by 
our  artillerymen  twenty  years  since,  but  not  ex- 
ceeding, here,  four  inches  in  depth,  may  be  taken  as 
a  sufficiently  accurate  model,)  shelving  from  front 
to  back,  concave  as  to  summit,  and  terminated  at 
the  back  with  a  short,  fan-like  veil  of  white  lace. 
The  kakoschnik  is  worn  quite  at  the  back  of  the 
head ;  the  parting  of  the  hair,  as  far  as  where  our 
tortoise-shell  comb  uprises  in  the  back-hair,  being 
left  uncovered.  In  wet  weather,  this  kakoschnik  is 
but  an  inefficient  protection  for  the  head ;  but  the 
Baba  disdains,  when  once  she  has  assumed  the 
national  head-dress,  to  cover  it  with  the  inelegant 
shawl-cowl.  In  a  dripping  shower  she  will,  at  most, 
pull  the  skirt  of  her  gown  over  her  head.  The  sub- 
structure of  the  kakoschnik  is  buckram — more  fre- 
quently pasteboard.  It  is  covered  with  the  richest 
and  brightest-coloured  material  the  Baba  can  afford 
to  buy.  It  is  decorated  with  trinkets,  spangles, 
silver  copeck  pieces,  (now  prohibited,)  gold-lace : 
nay,  according  to  her  degree  in  the  peasant  hierar- 
chy, seed-pearls,  and,  in  extreme  cases  of  wealth, 
real  precious  stones.  The  Russian  women  have  to 
the  full  as  great  a  penchant  for  decorating  their  per- 
sons with  gold  and  silver  coins  as  have  the  maids 
of  Athens  and  the  khanums  of  Turkey  for  twining 
sequins  and  piastres  in  their  hair.  A  few  years  ago 
there  was  quite  a  mania  in  society  for  wearing 
bracelets  and  necklaces  formed  of  new  silver  five- 
copeck  pieces,  strung  together.  These  are  about 


RUSSIANS   AT  HOME.  297 

the  size  of  our  silver  pennies — somewhat  thicker, 
not  broader  in  diameter,  (a  copeck  is  worth  about 
five-eighths  of  a  halfpenny,)  and  being  beautifully 
coined,  are  delightful  little  ornaments.  But  the 
government  sternly  prohibited  such  a  defacing  of 
the  current  coin  of  the  empire,  and  plainly  hinted  at 
the  possible  eventualities  of  the  Pleiti  or  whip  and 
Siberia,  in  the  case  of  recalcitrant  coin-tamperers. 

The  Russian  girl  who  possesses  a  jewelled  kako- 
schnik  must,  of  course,  have  the  rest  of  her  costume 
to  match,  in  richness  and  elegance.  Some  travellers 
— Mr.  Leozon  le  Due,  and  M.  Hommaire  de  Hell 
among  the  number — declare  that  they  have  been  in 
Russian  villages  on  great  feast-days,  the  Pentecost, 
for  example,  where  the  maidens  were  promenading 
in  kirtles  of  cloth  of  gold,  tunics  of  satin  and  silver 
brocade ;  white  silk-stockings ;  kakoschniks  blazing 
with  real  gold  and  jewelry ;  red  morocco  shoes  ;  lace 
veils  of  application-work  falling  to  the  heels ;  heavy 
bracelets  of  gold  and  silver;  pearl  necklaces;  dia- 
mond ear-rings ;  long  tresses  of  hair  interlaced  with 
ribbons  and  artificial  flowers.  Nothing  richer  or 
more  picturesque  than  this  could  well  be  imagined ; 
but  I  am  afraid  that  Annualism  is  marvellously 
prevalent  in  the  description.  Nova'ia  Ladoga,  I 
think,  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  villages  where  this 
splendacious  costume  is  to  be  seen.  That  there  is  a 
Lake  of  Ladoga,  I  know;  and  a  village  by  the 
name  of  Nova'ia  Ladoga  is  probable ;  but  I  am  ap- 
prehensive that  the  way  to  that  village  on  gala  days 
is  difficult,  and  dangerous,  and  doubtful;  that  the 
only  way  to  go  to  it  is  «*  straight  down  the  crooked 

13* 


298  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

lane,  and  all  round  the  square  ; "  and  that  the  Pente- 
cost time,  when  the  village  maidens  walk  about  in 
cloth  of  gold,  red  morocco  shoes,  and  diamond  ear- 
rings, will  be  in  the  year  of  Beranger's  millennium. 


xni. 

HETDE'S. 

THE  widow  Heyde  is  dead,  and  Zacchara'i  reigns 
in  her  stead ;  but  Heyde's  is  still :  even  as  Tom  and 
Joe's  coffee-houses  in  London  are  still  so  called, 
though  Tom  and  Joe  have  been  sleeping  the  sleep  of 
the  just  these  hundred  years,  and  Jack  and  Jerry  may 
be  the  tapsters  now,  in  their  place.  So  Heyde,  being 
dead,  is  Heyde  still.  Le  roi  est  mart !  vive  le  roi ! 

That  beefsteak  and  trimmings  with  which  on 
board  the  little  pyroscaphe  that  brought  me  to  this 
Vampire  Venice — this  Arabian  Nightmare — this  the 
reality  of  Coleridge's  distempered,  opium-begotten 
Xanadu;  (for  here  of  a  surety  lives,  or  lived,  the 
Kubla  Khan  who  decreed  the  stately  pleasure  dome, 
and  possessed  the  caverns  measureless  to  man, 
through  which  ran  that  river  down  to  the  sunless 
sea ;) — that  beefsteak  and  trimmings,  rouble-costing, 
with  which  coming  to  Xanadu — I  mean  St.  Peters- 
burg-^-I  was  incautious  enough  to  feed  the  wide- 
mouthed  Petersen,  did  not  turn  out  wholly  unpro- 
ductive to  me.  The  quality  of  that  beefsteak  and 


HEYDE'S.  299 

etceteras  was  not  strained.  It  may,  or  it  may  not 
have  fallen  like  the  gentle  dew  from  heaven  on 
Petersen :  but  it  undeniably  blessed  him  that  gave 
and  him  that  received  it.  Petersen's  stomach  was 
filled,  his  wide  mouth  satisfied ;  so  he  was  blessed  : 
the  gratitude  of  repletion,  (I  have  seen  a  tiger  in  a 
menagerie  wink  like  the  most  beneficent  of  charity- 
dinner  stewards  after  a  more  than  ordinarily  succu- 
lent shin-bone,)  the  beatitude  of  fulness  led  him  to 
bestow  on  me  a  small,  ragged,  and  dirty  scrap  of 
paper,  on  which  was  scrawled  in  German,  and  in — 
something  I  thought  at  first  to  be  the  mere  cali- 
graphic  midsummer  madness  of  Petersen,  but  which 
I  afterwards  discovered  to  be  his  best  Russ — these 
words,  "  Heyde's — Cadetten-linie,  Wassily-Ostrow 
— young  Mr.  Trobbener's  recommendation  at  J. 
Petersen."  Who  the  mysterious  young  Mr.  Trob- 
bener  was,  I  never  was  able  to  discover.  Did  Peter- 
sen  recommend  him,  or  he  Petersen  ?  Were  Peter- 
sen  and  Trobbener  the  same  personages?  Was 
Petersen  himself  young  Mr.  Petersen,  or  old  Mr. 
Petersen  ?  Was  he  of  any  age,  or  for  all  time,  or  for 
none  ?  Be  it  as  it  may,  through  the  medium  of  this 
paper,  I  too  was  blessed ;  for  though  on  the  first  im- 
pulse 1  was  inclined  to  scorn  Heyde's  and  to  put 
Petersen  down  as  an  unmitigated  tout,  it  turned  out 
that  by  an  accident — by  a  mere  fluke  of  shiftlessness 
of  purpose — I  did  not  go  to  the  Hotel  Napoleon,  or 
the  Hotel  Coulon,  or  the  Hotel  Klee,  or  to  the  Hotel 
des  Princes,  or  to  Mrs.  Spink's,  or  to  the  Misses 
Benson's,  or  to  any  of  the  ordinary  hotels  or  board-? 
ing  houses  where  ordinary  and  sensible  travellers 


300  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH.    - 

usually  turn  up  on  their  first  arrival  in  Pefropolis. 
Carrying  out  the  apparent  decision  in  the  superior 
courts  that  I  am  never  to  do  any  thing  like  anybody 
else,  I  managed  to  lose  all  my  fellow-travellers  in  the 
yard  of  the  temporary  custom-house  on  the  English 
quay,  (I  hasten  to  observe  for  the  benefit  of  the  crit- 
ics who  are  waiting  round  the  corner  for  me  with  big 
sticks,  that  the  custom-house  is  at  the  southern  ex- 
tremity of  Wassily-Ostrow,  and  that  the  cellars 
where  we  were  searched  were  but  a  species  of  lug- 
gage chapel-of-ease  to  the  greater  Douane.)  Then, 
going  very  vaguely  down  unto  Droschky,  I  fell  at 
last  among  Heyde,  luggage  and  all.  A  very  excel- 
lent find ;  a  nugget  of  treasure-trove  it  was  to  me  ; 
for  I  declare  that  with  the  exception  of  the  fortress 
of  Cronstadt,  (the  congeries  of  forts,  yards,  work- 
shops, guardships,  and  gunboats,  I  mean,)  which  is 
one  eye-blinding  instance  of  apple-pie  order  and 
new-pin  cleanliness,  the  Hotel  Heyde  is  the  only 
perfectly  clean  place — bar  none:  nor  palaces,  nor 
churches,  nor  princess's  chalets  in  the  Islands — with 
which,  in  the  Russian  Empire,  this  traveller  is  ac- 
quainted. The  Hotel  Heyde  smelt  certainly  of  soap 
and  soup ;  but  both  were  nice  smells  and  not  too 
powerful.  It  was  reported  that  one  bug  had  been 
bold  enough  to  cross  the  Neva  from  the  Winter  Pal- 
ace to  Heyde's  some  years  previously ;  but,  whether 
he  was  paddled  across  the  river  in  a  gondola,  or 
driven  across  the  Novi-Most,  or  New  Bridge,  in  a 
droschky,  was  never  known.  He  came  to  Heyde's, 
but  broke  his  heart  the  first  night  in  a  miserable 
attempt  to  make  an  impression  on  the  skin  of  the 


HEYDE'S.  301 

traveller  for  a  German  toy-merchant,  just  arrived 
from  the  fair  of  Nishi-Novgorod,  (where  there  are 
bugs  that  bite  like  sharks,  who  have  been  under  arti- 
cles to  crocodiles.)  A  housemaid  nosed  him  in  the 
lobby  next  morning ;  but  he  saved  himself  from  the 
disgrace  of  public  squashing  by  suicide,  and  they 
show  his  skin  in  the  bar  to  this  day. 

To  be  a  little  serious,  Heyde's  was  from  top  to 
bottom  scrupulously  and  delightfully  clean.  I  have 
no  interest  in  proclaiming  its  merits  to  the  world.  I 
have  paid  my  bill.  I  am  never  going  there  again. 
I  don't  know  Heyde — I  mean  Zacharai — personally ; 
for  it  was  with  Barnabay  Brothers,  his  representatives, 
that  I  always  transacted  business.  Still,  I  can  con- 
scientiously recommend  to  all  future  purposing  Rus- 
sian travellers,  the  Hotel  Heyde,  as  being  clean  and 
comfortable.  It  is  dear,  and  noisy,  and  out  of  the 
way  ;  but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there.  If  I  had  a 
few  of  Heyde's  cards  with  me,  I  would  distribute 
them  as  shamelessly  as  any  hotel  tout  on  Calais 
Pier ;  and  my  opinion  of  Petersen  now  is,  that  he 
is  not  merely  a  wide-mouthed  and  carnivorous  wolf- 
cub,  in  a  beaver  porringer — like  the  city  sword-bearer, 
who  goes  about  the  world  seeking  eleemosynary 
beefsteaks  and  trimmings — but  that  he  is  a  philan- 
thropist, who,  disgusted  at  the  narrow  mindedness 
and  heart-sterility  of  the  company  that  used  to  go 
to  Helsingfors,  has  proposed  to  himself  as  a  mission 
the  perpetual  pyroscaphal  parcurrence  of  the  Neva 
from  Petersburg  to  Cronstadt  and  back  again,  and 
the  ceaseless  distribution  of  unclean  scraps  of  paper 
telling  in  Teuton  and  in  Sclavonic  of  Heyde's,  and 


302  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

young  Mr.  Trobbener,  and  himself,  simply  because 
he  is  a  philanthropist,  and  that  Heyde's  is  clean,  and 
he,  Petersen,  has  stayed  there,  and  knows  it. 

I  came  to  Heyde's — though  but  one  man — in  two 
droschkies,  like  that  strange  animal  one  of  which 
came  over  in  two  ships.  In  this  wise.  I  don't  mean 
to  imply,  literally,  that  I  had  one  droschky  for  my 
body,  and  another  for  my  legs,  a  la  Americalne ; 
though  I  was  quite  fatigued  enough  to  have  ren- 
dered that  means  of  conveyance,  had  it  been  in 
accordance  with  the  proprieties  of  Petersburg,  or 
even  with  possibility,  delightful.  But  this  was  not 
to  be.  My  having  two  droschkies  was  necessitated 
by  there  being  none  but  the  little  Moscow  side  sad- 
dles on  wheels  disengaged,  which  hold  indeed  two 
passengers ;  but,  in  the  way  of  luggage,  will  not 
accommodate  so  much  as  a  carpet-bag  in  addition 
to  the  human  load.  How  ever  my  luggage  was 
loaded,  or  managed  to  be  kept  on  the  little  rickety 
bench  with  the  little  wild  beast  with  the  long  mane 
and  tail  in  it,  and  the  large  wild  man  in  the  caftan, 
the  beard,  and  the  boots,  bestriding  where  the  splash- 
board ought  to  have  been,  but  wasn't — I  have  not 
the  slightest  idea.  However,  with  a  bump,  some 
jolts,  and  some  screams,  my  luggage  was  heaped  on 
one  droschky,  and  I  on  another ;  then  everybody  had 
some  copecks  given  them — including  an  official  in 
Hessian  boots  who  suddenly  appeared  from  a  back 
door  in  the  yard  (I  really  conjectured  it  to  be  the 
dust-hole)  who  demanded  seventy-five,  in  French, 
haughtily,  who  received  them  very  unthankfully, 
and  who,  saying  something  to  another  official, 


IIEYDE'S.  303 

dressed  in  gray,  (he  had  five  copecks,)  which  I  sup- 
pose was  Open  Sesame!  disappeared  majestically 
into  the  dust-hole  again.  Open  Sesame  !  let  us  out 
into  a  dusty  street ;  for  I  and  the  droschky-drivers 
and  the  travellers  had  all  been  prisoned  within  the 
custom-house's  moated  grange  till  this,  and  it  had 
pleased  the  man  in  the  dust-hole  to  let  us  out. 

The  phaethon  droschkies,  the  double-bodied  drosch- 
kies,  the  caleche  droschkies,  had  all  driven  away 
hotelwards  through  the  dust — I  did  hope  that  Miss 
Wapps  might  be  well  bitten  that  same  night ;  and  I 
was  alone  with  the  droschkies,  the  dust,  and  the 
Petersen's  bit  of  paper.  There  was  dust  on  either 
side,  and  dust  beneath,  and  dust  behind  us,  and 
dust  before,  and  nothing  more,  save  the  occasional 
vision  of  the  luggage-droschky  a-head,  which  was 
bumping  up  and  down  and  in  and  out  of  the  pul- 
verous  cloud  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner.  I 
now  first  became  acquainted  with  the  fact,  that  as 
soon  as  a  Russian  Ischvostchik  gets  on  a  tolerably 
long  road-way,  he  gives  his  horse  his  head,  and 
throwing  up  his  own  legs,  yells  with  delight,  and  is 
— till  he  is  compelled  to  heave-to  by  the  menacing 
halberd  of  a  Boutotsnik — supremely  happy.  We 
were  in  the  Perspective  of  something  or  other — the 
Dusty-Bobboff  Perspective  I  was  inclined  to  call  it 
at  the  time — and  the  driver,  anticipating  with  joy  a 
quiet  mile  or  so  of  furious  driving,  suddenly  gave 
the  vicious  little  brute  he  was  driving  his  head,  fol- 
lowing it  with  the  usual  performances  of  leg-ele- 
vating, arm-flourishing,  and  yelling.  I  decidedly 
thought  that  Ischvostchik  had  gone  mad.  The 


304  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

horse  being  given  his  head,  took  in  addition  his  four 
shoes,  his  hocks,  his  tail,  and  every  thing  that  was 
his,  and  made  good  use  of  them,  scrambling,  tear- 
ing, pawing  along,  and  I  almost  was  led  to  think 
yelling  as  well  as  his  maniacal  driver.  What  was  I 
to  do  ?  What  could  I  do,  but  catch  hold  of  the 
Ischvostchik,  at  last,  quite  frantically  by  the  shoul- 
ders, and  entreat  him  to  stop.  For  a  wonder,  he 
understood  me,  as  I  thought  intuitively ;  but,  as  I 
afterwards  found,  from  my  hurried  Stop !  stop !  be- 
ing very  like  to  the  short,  sharp  Russian  stoi !  stoi ! 

I  have  heard  gentlemen  who  ride  to  hounds  talk 
of  the  remarkably  fine  burst  they  have  had  after  that 
carrion  with  the  bushy  tail  some  November  morn- 
ing. I  have  read  the  terribly  grotesque  epic  of  Miss 
Kielmansegge  and  her  golden  leg ;  Burger  has  told 
me  in  Lenore  how  fast  the  dead  ride  ;  I  have  seen 
some  Derbies,  Oaks,  and  Doncasters ;  I  have  trav- 
elled by  some  express  trains ;  I  have  seen  Mr.  Tur- 
ner's picture  of  Hail,  rain,  steam,  and  speed ;  and 
now,  if  for  hail  you  will  substitute  dust,  and  for 
rain  hpt  wind,  and  for  steam  a  wild  horse,  and  in- 
crease the  speed  as  many  times  tenfold  as  you  like, 
you  will  have  a  picture  of  me  in  the  droschky,  and 
the  droschky  itself  flying  through  the  dusty  Perspec- 
tives of  Petersburg. 

Over  a  bridge  I  know,  where  there  was  a  shrine- 
chapel,  open  at  the  four  sides,  where  people  were 
worshipping.  Then  dust.  Then  along  a  quay. 
More  dust.  And  then  the  seemingly  interminable 
flight  along  Perspectives.  And  at  last,  Heyde's. 

A  building,  apparently  about  a  third  of  the  size 


HEYDE'S.  .      305 

of  the  Bank  of  England,  with  the  Corinthian  pilas- 
ters beaten  flat,  with  a  hugeous  blue  signboard 
somewhat  akin  to  that  dear  old  Barclay  and  Per- 
kins one  in  the  England  I  may  never  see  again  ;  on 
this  signboard  Heyde's,  with  some  of  the  unknown 
tongue  beneath.  Beyond,  over  the  way,  and  some 
miles  on  either  side,  houses  considerably  bigger 
than  Heyde's,  all  painted  either  in  white  or  more 
glaring  yellow,  and  with  some  red  but  more  green 
roofs.*  And,  save  our  party,  not  a  living  soul  to  be 
seen.  A  defection  of  one  took  place  immediately 
from  our  band,  small  as  it  was,  the  luggage  Isch- 
vostchik,  feeling,  no  doubt,  athirst — how  thirsty  was 
I ! — incontinently  diving  down  some  stone  steps  into 
a  semi-cellar  that  yawned  beneath  Heyde's  parlour 
windows.  Such  half-cellars — not  level  with  the 
pavement,  and  not  an  honest  area  depth  beneath  it 
— are  common  in  the  grandest  streets  of  Petropolis. 
The  meanest  little  shops  crawl  at  the  feet  of  gigan- 
tic buildings,  like  Lazarus  lying  in  his  rags  before 
Dives's  door.  The  cellar  in  which  my  Ischvostchik 
had  disappeared  was,  I  was  not  slow  in  concluding, 
a  Vodki  shop :  first,  from  the  strong  spirituous 

*  Comparison,  even  with  the  diminution  of  a  third,  to  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  Bank  of  England  is  of  course  a  little  extravagant ; 
but  I  wished  to  give  the  reader  a  notion,  there  and  then,  of  the 
astonishing  size  of  even  private  Houses  in  St.  Petersburg.  The 
great  imperial  rule  is  carried  out  even  in  architecture  as  in  gov- 
ernment. Aut  Ccesar,  aut  Ivan  Ivanavitch,  who  is  considerably 
less  than  a  nullity.  In  Russian  houses  there  are  but  two  classes 
— hovels  and  palaces.  I  know  one  lodging-house  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, close  to  the  Moscow  Railway  Terminus,  which  has  more 
than  two  thousand  inmates. 


806  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

odour  which  exuded  therefrom ;  next,  from  the  un- 
mistakable sign  of  a  bunch  of  grapes  rudely  carved 
in  wood,  and  profusely  gilt,  suspended  over  the 
doorway.  And  have  I  not  a  right  to  call  this  a 
remarkable  people,  who  keep  grog-shops,  and  sell 
meat-pies,  in  the  basement  of  their  palaces  ?  I  was 
about  to  collar  the  second  Ischvostchik  to  prevent 
his  fleeing  too  ;  but  he,  good  fellow,  wished  to  see 
me  comfortably  into  Heyde's,  or  was,  perhaps,  anx- 
ious about  the  fare,  and  he  remained.  He  was  so 
anxious  about  this  fare  that  he  demanded  it  at  once 
with  passionate  entreaties  and  gesticulations,  crying 
out,  when  I  gave  him  to  understand  by  signs  that 
he  would  be  paid  when  I  was  inside,  "  Nietts  Geyde ! 
Nietts  Geyde!  Sitchas!"  Why  should  he  have 
objected  to  be  paid  by  Heyde,  or  at  Heydes,  or 
Geydes,  as  he  called  it  ?  Wearied  at  last  with 
manual  language,  I  asked  him  how  much  he  and 
his  brother  Jehu  thought  themselves  entitled  to ; 
whereupon  he  held  up  such  a  hand — the  hand  in  a 
baronet's  scutcheon  was  nothing  to  it  for  bigness, 
boldness,  and  beefiness — and  cried  out,  "  Roubliy 
cerebram  !  Roubliy  cerebram !  "  counting  one,  two, 
three  fingers ;  from  which  I  gathered  that  he  wanted 
three  roubles — nine  and  sixpence — for  a  twenty  min- 
utes' drive.  But  I  did  not  pay  him ;  for,  with  the 
exception  of  one  English  sixpence,  one  Irish  harp 
halfpenny,  one  Danish  Rigsbank  schilling,  and  some 
very  small  deer  in  the  way  of  copecks  and  silber- 
grbschen,  I  had  no  money. 

I  have  been  keeping  the  reader  a  most  unconscion- 
able time  at  Heyde's  Hotel  door ;  but  I  am  certain 


HEYDE'S.  307 

that  I  was  kept  there  a  most  unconscionable  time 
myself.  The  Ischvostchik  who  didn't  go  to  the 
Vodki  shop,  and  who  had  so  great  an  objection  to 
being  paid  by  Geyde,  hung  himself — that  is  about 
the  word — not  for  suicidal  but  for  tintinnabulatory 
purposes,  to  a  great  bell  that  projected  from  the 
doorjamb  like  a  gibbet,  or  a  wholesale  grocer's 
crane.  He  swung  about,  tugging  at  this  bell  till  I 
could  hear  it  booming  through  the  house  like  a  Chi- 
nese gong,  but  nobody  answered  it.  There  was  a 
great  balcony  on  the  first  floor,  with  a  Marquise 
verandah  above  it,  and  in  this  balcony  a  very  stout 
gentleman  smoking  a  cigarette.  I  shouted  out  an 
inquiry  to  him  in  French  and  German,  as  to  whether 
there  was  anybody  in  the  house,  but  he  merely 
smiled,  wagged  his  fat  head,  and  didn't  answer  me. 
He  was  either  very  deaf  or  very  rude.  Nobody 
came,  while  before  me  glared  the  great  closed  door 
of  Heyde's  which  was  painted  a  rich  maroon  colour, 
and  had  a  couple  of  great  knob  bell-handles,  like 
the  trunnions  of  brass  cannon.  Nobody  came.  It 
was  now  nearly  six  o'clock,  but  the  sun  was  blazing 
away  with  noontide  vigour,  and  seemingly  caring 
no  more  than  my  friend  Captain  Smith  for  any  cur- 
fews that  might  toll  the  knell  of  parting  day.  And 
the  infernal  dust,  with  no  visible  motive  influence, 
came  trooping  down  the  street  in  rolling  caravans  of 
brown,  hot,  stifling  clouds.  And  the  Ischvostchik 
kept  swinging  at  the  demoniac  bell,  which  kept 
booming,  and  nobody  came ;  and  I  began  to  think  of 
crying  aloud,  this  is  not  Petropolis  or  Petersburg  of 
Russia,  but  the  city  of  Dis,  and  Francesca  of  Rimini 


308  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

passed  by  in  that  last  cloud  caravan,  and  yonder 
bell-swinger  is  not  an  Ischvostchik,  but  P.  Virgilius 
Maro,  inducting  me,  Dante  Alighieri,  into  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Inferno.  Would  that  I  had  Dante's 
stool  to  sit  upon — to  say  nothing  of  the  genius  of 
that  Florentine ! 

A  bearded  party  in  a  red  shirt  (his  beard  was  red 
too)  eventually  put  in  an  appearance  through  the 
tardy  opening  of  the  maroon-coloured  door.  He 
exchanged  a  few  compliments  or  abusive  epithets — 
they  may  have  been  one,  they  may  have  been  the 
other — with  the  Ischvostchik ;  then,  closing  the  door 
again,  he  disappeared  and  left  me  to  desolation. 

How  long  we  might  have  continued  dwellers  at 
the  threshold  at  Heyde's  inhospitable  door  is  exceed- 
ingly uncertain — perhaps  till  the  cows  came  home, 
perhaps  till  I  went  mad — but,  just  as  I  began  to 
speculate  on  one  or  other  of  those  eventualities,  it 
suddenly  occurred  to  my  Ischvostchik  to  call  out  in 
a  tone  of  triumph,  "  Geyde  na  Dom,"  which  I  con- 
jectured to  be  a  sort  of  Muscovite  paean  for  Heyde 
being  to  the  fore.  And,  following  out  the  discovery 
he  had  announced  with  such  Eureka-like  elocution, 
the  droschky-driver  did  no  more  nor  less  than  turn 
one  of  the  brass-cannon-trunnion-like  door-handles 
and  walk  me  into  Heyde's  hall.  It  was  the  old 
story  of  Mahomet  and  the  Mountain.  Heyde 
would  not  come  to  us,  so  we  were  obliged  to  go  to 
Heyde's — which,  by  the  way,  we  might  perhaps 
have  done  a  quarter  of  an  hour  previously.  But  I 
never  was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  yet,  nor 
did  the  right  thing.  The  second  or  luggage  Isch- 


IIEYDE'S.  309 

vostchik — he  who  had  been  so  prompt  in  disappear- 
ing into  the  vodki-shop,  and  who  had  now  returned 
smelling  very  strongly  of  that  abominable  black- 
sheep  of  the  not-at-any -time-over-reputable  Alcohol 
family — evidently  thought  very  little  of  my  strength 
of  purpose  in  obtaining  admittance  into  an  hotel. 
He,  with  a  contemptuous  leer  on  his  face,  (which, 
round  and  flat,  and  straightly  touched  for  line  and 
feature,  was  not  unlike  the  mystic  dial  that  crowns 
the  more  mystic  columns  in  the  inner  sheet  of  the 
Times  newspaper,)  seemed  to  taunt  me  with  my 
inability  to  get  into  Heyde's ;  to  imply,  moreover, 
that  he  knew  well  enough  how  to  effect  an  entrance, 
because  he  hated  me  as  an  Anglisky,  and  hated  the 
other  Ischvostchik,  his  brother,  for  being  his  brother, 
simply. 

The  sun  had  been  brightly  glaring  outside ;  the 
hall  of  Heyde's  was  painted  above  and  on  either 
side  a  cool  green ;  and  the  transition  from  the  brazen 
desert  outside  to  these  leafy  shades  was  pleasant  as 
unexpected.  It  would  have  been  much  pleasanter, 
though,  had  we  found  any  one  living  soul  to  wel- 
come us ;  but  nobody  came. 

At  the  extremity  of  the  hall  there  commenced  a 
very  dark  stone  staircase,  beneath  which  there  was 
a  recess,  most  uncomfortably  like  a  grave  with  a  bed 
in  it.  My  eyes  had  been  very  much  tried  by  the 
glare  without  and  the  green  within,  and  my  knowl- 
edge of  external  objects  was  blurred,  not  to  say  ren- 
dered null  and  void,  by  sundry  elaborate  geometrical 
patterns  of  fantastical  design  and  parti-coloured  hue 
swimming  about  in  the  verdant  darkness.  So  I  was 


310  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

not  able  to  aver  with  any  degree  of  distinctness 
whether  there  were  anybody  or  not  on  the  bed  in 
the  recess  that  looked  like  a  grave.  Not  so  with 
the  Ischvostchik  ;  he  with  cat-like  agility  dived  into 
the  recess,  and,  after  many  struggles,  brought  into 
the  greenness  the  man  with  the  red  shirt  who  had 
whilom  opened  the  front  door,  and  shut  it  again  in 
our  faces.  Him  he  shook  and  objurgated  in  much 
violent  Russ ;  at  last  he  seemed  to  make  the  red- 
shirted  door-shutter  comprehend  for  what  reason  a 
very  tired  traveller  should  arrive  at  an  hotel  in  St. 
Petersburg  in  two  droschkies — himself  in  one,  his 
luggage  in  another.  He  cried  out  "  Portier,  portier ! " 
and  darting  down  a  dark  corridor,  presently  returned 
with  a  little  old  man,  in  faded  European  costume — 
very  snuffy,  stupid,  semi-idiotic,  as  it  seemed  to  me. 
1  could  not  at  all  make  out  to  what  nation,  if  any, 
he  had  in  the  origin  belonged ;  but  I  managed  to 
hammer  a  few  words  of  German  into  him,  to  the 
effect  that  I  was  very  tired  and  dusty  and  hungry, 
and  that  I  required  a  bed,  food,  a  bath,  and  the 
payment  of  the  droschky.  I  don't  think  he  clearly 
understood  a  tithe  of  my  discourse,  but  on  the  retina 
of  his  mind  there  gradually,  I  imagine,  became  im- 
pressed the  image  of  a  traveller  who  wanted  to 
spend  his  money  at  Heyde's,  and  ultimately  fee 
him,  the  porter,  with  silver  roubles.  So  he  rang  a 
HAND-BELL,  which  brought  down  one  of  the  brothers 
Barnabay  who  manage  Heyde's  for  ZacharaV  the 
Mythic  ;  and  this  brother  Barnabay,  (it  was  the  stout 
brother,)  understood  me,  the  droschkies,  the  diffi- 
culty, everything.  Would  I,  dear  lord,  as  I  was, 


HEYDE'S.  311 

show  him  my  passport  ?     This  was  before  Barnabay 
quite  understood  anything.     I  showed  him  my  pass- 
port.    He  was  so  delighted  with  it  as  to  keep  it,  but- 
toning it  up  in  a  stout  coat-pocket,  but  assuring  me 
that  it  was  Ganz  recht— ganz  recM  !    and   immedi- 
ately became  as  fond  of  me  as  though  he  had  known 
me  from  infancy,  or  as  though  I  had  been  his  other 
brother,  and  a  Barnabay.     He  had  my  rugs,  my  cou- 
rier's bag,  my  spare  caps  and  writing-case  off  my 
arms  and  shoulders  instantaneously.     That  famous 
hand-bell  was    tinkled    again,  and  two   more   red- 
shirted  slaves  of  the  bell  appearing,  a  room  was  or- 
dered to  be  prepared  and  a  bath  to  be  heated  for  me. 
I  had  scarcely  opened  my  mouth  to  tell  him  that  I 
had  no  more  Russian  money,  and  that  he  must  pay 
the  droschky,  when  he  had  paid  both.     And  now  I, 
on  my  part,  understood  why  the  Ischvostchiks  had 
wished  me  to  pay  them,  and  cried,  "  Nietts  Geyde  ! 
Nietts  Geyde  !  "  for,  from  their  pitching  my  luggage 
viciously  into  the  hall,  from  their  pouring  out  a  strain 
of  half-whining,  half-threatening  remonstrances,  and 
from  Barnabay  being  evidently  on  the  point,  at  one 
stage  of  the  proceedings,  to  apply  the  punishment, 
not  of  the  stick,  but  of  the  square-toed  boot  upon 
them,  it  is  anything  but  doubtful  that  Geyde  (repre- 
sented by  Zachara'i's  representative  Barnabay  brother) 
was  hard  upon  the  Ischvostchiks,  and  gave  them  no 
more — perhaps  a  little  less — than  their  fare.     I  am  of 
opinion,  too,  that  Geyde's  or  Heyde's  was  a  little  hard 
upon  me,  too,  subsequently,  in  the  bill  relative  to  that 
same  cab  fare  ;  but  surely  somebody  must  be  cheated, 
(as  a  Russian  shop-keeper  once  naively  remarked  to 


312  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

me,)  and  who  so  fit  to  be  cheated  as  an  Inostranez 
— a  stranger — and,  what  is  much  worse,  an  An- 
glisky  ? 

Leaving  the  Ischvostchiks  to  lament,  or  curse,  or 
pray  for  us  in  the  hall,  (I  don't  know  which  it  was, 
but  they  made  a  terrible  noise  over  it,)  the  nimble 
Barnabay  skips  before  me  up  the  great  stone  stair- 
case, which  grows  much  lighter  as  we  ascend,  and 
which  I  begin  to  notice  now  (being  somewhat  re- 
covered from  the  glare  and  the  greenness,)  is  of  that 
new-pin  like  degree  of  cleanliness  I  have  before 
hinted  at.  Then  we  push  aside  a  glass  door,  and 
enter  a  vast  chamber,  half- American  bar,  half- Paris- 
ian cafe  in  appearance ;  for,  at  a  long  counter  cus- 
tomers are  liquoring,  or  painting — or  drinking  drams, 
tell  the  unslanged  truth  ;  and  at  little  marble  tables, 
customers  are  smoking  and  drinking  demi-tasses: 
but  wholly  Russia,  for  all  that ;  for  I  can  see,  tower- 
ing through  the  tobacco-clouds,  a  giant  stove,  all 
carvings  and  sculpture,  like  Sir  Cloudesly  Shovell's 
monument  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Then  another 
glass-door ;  then  another  corridor ;  then  the  door  of 
apartment  Number  Eighteen ;  then  another  hand-bell 
is  tinkled,  and  a  real  Russian  chambermaid  appears 
to  open  the  bedroom  door,  and  a  real  German  waiter 
— for  there  is  no  promotion  from  the  ranks  at  Heyde's ; 
and  the  red-chemised  slaves  of  the  bell  are  kept  in 
their  proper  places — asks  me,  in  first-rate  North  Ger- 
man, what  I  will  have  for  dinner. 

The  first  sight  of  apartment  Number  Eighteen 
startles  me,  and  I  confess  not  very  favourably.  If 
that  little  recess  beneath  the  staircase  on  the  base- 


HEYDE'S.  313 

merit  were  like  a  grave ;  Number  Eighteen  is  horribly 
like  a  family  vault.  It  is  of  tremendous  size — very 
dark — and  the  bed,  which  is  covered  with  snowy 
white  drapery,  is  very  long,  narrow,  uncurtained, 
and  a  very  short  distance  removed  from  the  floor ; 
and  has  the  closest  and  most  unpleasant  family  re- 
semblance to  the  tomb  of  a  Knight  Templar.  If, 
in  addition  to  this,  I  write  that  this  long  white  bed 
is  all  alone,  by  itself,  in  the  middle  of  the  vault — I 
mean  the  bedchamber — that  the  inevitable  stove 
seems  even  higher,  bigger,  and  whiter  that  Sir 
Claudesly  ShovelFs  monument  in  the  cafe  ;  that  the 
chest  of  drawers  is  dreadfully  like  a  brick  sarcopha- 
gus ;  that  there  are  some  massive,  gloomy  shelves, 
on  which  there  are  no  coffins  as  yet,  but  which  I 
fancy  must  have  been  designed  to  receive  those  last 
of  snuff-boxes,  which  are  to  titillate  the  nose  of  hu- 
manity ;  that  the  windows,  though  very  numerous, 
are  very  small;  that  the  folding-doors  of  a  great 
mahogany  wardrobe  yawn  tombfully,  as  though 
they  were  the  portals  of  the  inner  chamber  of  death ; 
that  there  is  one  corner  cupboard  which  I  can  al- 
most make  oath  and  swear,  is  the  identical  corner 
cupboard  reserved  by  the  especial  NEMESIS  for  years 
— the  corner  cupboard  where  the  skeleton  is — when 
I  have  given  this  hurried  inventory  of  the  furniture 
of  Number  Eighteen,  it  is  a  work  of  supererogation 
to  relate  that,  being  a  nervous  man,  I  shake  my  head 
when  Barnabay  Brother  tells  me  the  terms — two 
roubles  a  day,  exclusive  of  attendance — and  that  I 
ask  midly  whether  I  cannot  have  a  smaller,  lighter, 
cheaper  apartment.  But  I  cannot  have  anything 


314  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

smaller,  cheaper,  lighter,  Zimmer.  All  else  is  full, 
engaged  up  to  the  eyes,  three  deep,  till  to-morrow 
fortnight,  till  the  Greek  calends.  I  can  go  over  to 
the  Napoleon,  to  the  Coulon,  to  the  Deymouth,  to 
the  Klee,  to  the  Princes,  but  I  shall  find  everything 
(not  that  this  poor  house,  dear  lord,  would  wish  to 
lose  your  distinguished,  and,  of  consideration,  pat- 
ronage !)  as  full  as  the  tomb  of  the  Eleven  Thou- 
sand Virgins  at  Cologne.  This  "  funerals  per- 
formed" allusion  jars  upon  my  nerves  again,  as 
having  unpleasant  reference  to  the  family  vault 
view  of  things  in  general.  But,  as  I  find  I  can't 
well  obtain  any  other  accommodation  ;  as  I  opine  I 
can  turn  out  and  engage  cheaper  apartments  in  a 
private  house  to-morrow;  as  the  vault,  though  a 
vault,  looks  a  remarkably  clean  mausoleum,  and  does 
not  by  any  means  give  me  the  impression  that  it  is 
haunted  even  by  the  ghost  of  a  flea, — such  as  poor 
dear  "William  Blake,  the  supernaturalist  painter,  saw 
what  time  he  witnessed  a  fairy's  funeral  in  a  garden 
by  moonlight — I  accede  to  the  terms,  and  am  swiftly 
at  home  at  Heyde's. 

I  say  at  home — and  swiftly ;  because  no  sooner  have 
I  accepted  to  sit  at  Heyde's,  at  fourteen  silver  roubles 
a  week,  than  I  become  in  Barnabay's  mind,  no  lon- 
ger a  wandering  traveller,  higgling  and  haggling  for 
accommodation — but  "  Nummer  achtsehn," — Num- 
ber Eighteen,  duly  housed  and  recognized  ;  my  pass- 
port in  Heyde's  pocket  (you  will  observe  that  I  use  the 
terms  Heyde's,  Barnabay,  Zacharai,  somewhat  indif- 
ferently ;  but  is  it  not  all  one  with  regard  to  nomen- 
clature, when  ah1  is  Heyde's  ?)  my  name  on  Heyde's 


HEYDE'S.  315 

house-slate,  my  name,  in  far  more  enduring  charac- 
ters already,  in  Heyde's  leger :  for,  has  he  not  paid 
the  Ischvostchiks,  and  is  not  that  the  commencement 
of  a  goodly  score  ? 

At  home  at  Heyde's,  I  have  to  repeat ;  for  perhaps, 
while  the  Brother  JSarnabay  is  chalking  me  up  as 
Number  Eighteen,  one  red-shirted  slave  of  the  bell 
has  devoided  me  of  almost  every  particle  of  apparel, 
and  has,  by  some  astonishing  feat  of  gymnastic 
ability,  got  on  to  some  adjacent  housetop,  where  I 
can  see  him,  and  hear  him  brushing  them,  and  hiss- 
ing meanwhile  in  approval,  ostler  fashion.  Another 
vassal  is  preparing  an  adjacent  bath-room,  which 
(always  remember  that  we  are  in  a  German  hotel) 
is  on  the  ordinary  hot-water  principle,  and  not  the 
stewpan,  combined  with  chemical  distillery,  finished 
off  by  Busbeian  discipline  and  buckets-of-cold-water, 
Russian  vapour-bath.  Serf  number  three,  the  twin 
brother  of  the  two  others,  has  uncorded  my  luggage, 
and  is  now  tugging  away  at  my  boots,  with  so 
good-humoured  a  grin  on  his  willing  bearded  coun- 
tenance that  I  am  far  more  inclined  to  slap  him  on 
the  shoulder  than  to  remember  that  my  feet  are 
swollen,  and  that  he  has  nearly  dislocated  my  ankle. 
You  find  among  the  poor  slave  Russians — I  can 
scarcely  say  the  poorest,  lowest,  most  degraded,  when 
all  are  degraded,  and  low,  and  poor  ;  all  figures  of 
Zero,  to  swell  the  millions  of  roubles  their  masters 
possess,  and  make  those  Units  wealthy  and  powerful 
— the  kindest  faces,  the  most  willing,  obliging,  grate- 
ful dispositions  in  the  world.  To  qualify  that  old 
Billingsgate  locution,  which,  coarse  as  it  is,  is  exactly 


316  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

applicable  here,  "  Barring  that  a  Russian  moujik  is 
a  liar  and  a  thief,  no  one  can  say  that  black  is  the 
white  of  his  eye."  He  is  kind ;  he  is  grateful ;  he  is 
affectionate ;  not  quarrelsome  when  drunk ;  untir- 
ingly industrious;  (when  on  his  own  account,  he  will 
idle  the  lord's  time  away,  and.  who  can  wonder  ?) 
ordinarily  frugal ;  and  as  astonishingly  self-denying 
as  an  Irish  peasant  when  he  has  a  purpose  to  serve. 
His  vices  are  the  vices  of  barbarism  ;  and  here  comes 
the  difficulty  in  his  treatment  to  those  who  are  even 
most  disposed  to  treat  him  kindly.  I  declare  of  my 
own  knowledge  that  it  is  impossible  to  live  in  Russia, 
among  the  Russians,  without  feeling  that  the  serfs — 
from  domestic  servants  to  farm  labourers,  from  ladies' 
waiting-maids  to  village  babas — laugh  at  what  we 
should  call  kindness,  and  despise  a  master  who  does 
not  act  on  the  principle  of  a  word  and  a  blow.  It 
is  impossible  to  avoid  becoming  to  a  certain  degree 
hardened  and  brutalized  by  the  constant  spectacle  of 
unrestrained  tyranny  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  the 
impossibility  of  resistance  on  the  other.  Every  one 
beats,  and  kicks,  and  cuffs,  and  calls  his  inferiors 
opprobrious  epithets;  would  it  be  surprising  that, 
through  mere  habit,  the  most  ardent  lover  of  freedom 
fell  into  some  of  the  despotic  ways  of  those  he  lived 
amongst  ?  I  am  glad  to  say  that  I  lived  too  short  a 
time  in  the  Russian  Rome  for  it  to  be  seldom  if  ever 
necessary  to  me  to  do  as  the  Romans  do ;  yet  I  have 
often  been  conscious  and  ashamed  of  a  temptation 
to  administer  the  argument  of  Mr.  Grantley  Berkeley 
— the  punch  on  the  head — for  what  would  in  Eng- 
land have  been  considered,  if  an  offence  at  all,  one 


MY   BED   AND   BOARD.  317 

only  to  be  visited  by  a  word  of  reproof ;  I  have  often 
been  conscious,  and  more  ashamed,  of  speaking  to 
droschky-drivers,  and  waiters,  and  Ivan  generally,  in 
a  manner  that,  employed  towards  a  cabby  or  a  coally 
in  England  would  have  infallibly  brought  on  the 
punching  of  my  head,  if  not  the  knocking  down  of 
my  body  altogether. 

Of  Heyde's  more  anon  ;  whether  the  family  vault 
bedroom  did  or  did  not  contain  ghosts,  and  who  the 
fat  man  was  who  was  smoking  the  cigarette  in  the 
balcony,  and  answered  not  when  I  spoke  to  him. 


XIV. 

MY   BED   AND   BOARD. 


A  GREAT  writer  has  somewhere  told  a  story  of  a 
man  about  town — Crockey  Doyle,  was,  I  think,  his 
name — who  became  very  popular,  in  society  through 
the  talent  he  possessed  for  making  apologies.  He 
would  give  offence  purposely,  and  be  in  the  wrong 
advisedly,  in  order  to  be  able  to  make,  afterwards, 
the  most  charming  retractations  in  the  world.  No 
one  could  be  long  angry  with  a  man  who  apologized 
so  gracefully ;  so  he  became  popular  accordingly,  was 
asked  out  to  dinner  frequently ;  and  was  eventually, 
I  dare  say,  popped  into  a  snug  berth  in  the  Tare 
and  Tret  Office. 

I  have  not  the  easy  eloquence  of  Crockey  Doyle. 


318  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

I  am  not  popular.  My  most  frequent  Amphytrions 
are  Humphrey,  Duke  of  Glo'ster,  or  the  head  of  the 
great  oriental  house  of  Barmecide  and  Company. 
And  no  one,  I  am  sure,  would  ever  dream  of  giving 
me  a  place.  Yet  I  am  for  ever  making  apologies. 
Like  the  gambler's  servant,  who  was  "  always  tying 
his  shoe  ; "  like  Wych  Street,  which  is  always  vehicle- 
obstructed  ;  like  a  friend  of  mine,  who,  whenever  I 
meet  him,  is  always  going  to  his  tea,  and  never, 
seemingly  accomplishes  that  repast;  I  am  always 
apologizing  either  for  the  things  I  have  done,  or  for 
the  things  I  ought  to  and  have  not  done.  I  have 
apologized  in  England,  and  in  France,  and  in  Ger- 
many ;  here  I  am  again,  a  self-accusing  clown  apol- 
ogizing in  St.  Petersburg  of  Russia;  and  I  have 
little  doubt  that  if  I  live  I  shall  be  apologizing  in, 
Pekin,  or  New  Orleans,  or  the  Island  of  Key  West. 

My  apologies  in  the  present  instance  are  due  to 
my  readers,  firstly,  for  having  loitered  and  lingered 
outside  the  door  of  Heyde's,  and  for  having  described 
every  thing  concerning  that  hotel  save  the  hotel  it- 
self. Secondly,  for  having  placed  the  words  Hand- 
Bell  in  the  large  capitals  without  offering  the  slightest 
explanation  as  to  why  that  diminutive  tintinnabulum 
should  be  so  suddenly  promoted  in  the  typographi- 
cal scale. 

Touching  the  first,  though  you  might  have  put  me 
down  merely  as  a  bore — telling  you  of  things  that 
did  not  interest  you,  or  desirous  of  spinning  a  length- 
ened yarn  out  of  one  poor  thread — or  as  a  simpleton, 
nervous  and  ashamed,  who  lingers  long  in  the  vesti- 
bule of  a  mansion  in  which  there  is  a  feast  prepared, 


MY   BED   AND   BOARD.  319 

and  he  invited  thereto,  and  takes  his  goloshes  off 
and  on,  instead  of  going  up  stairs  boldly,  and  making 
his  bow  to  the  hostess  ; — though  this  may  have  been 
your  conviction,  I  had,  in  truth,  a  deep-laid  and 
subtle  design  to  impress  you  with  a  notion  of  what 
an  opposite  a  Russian  is  to  an  English  or  a  conti- 
nental hotel,  and  how  fundamentally  Oriental  are 
the  habits  and  manners  of  the  people  I  am  cast 
among.  The  Russian  hotel  is,  in  fact,  nothing  more 
than  a  Smyrniote  or  Damascene  caravanserai — vast, 
lonely,  unclean,  thickly  peopled,  yet  apparently  de- 
serted,— the  same  caravanserai,  into  whqse  roomy 
courtyard  you  bring  your  camels,  your  asses,  and 
your  bales  of  silks,  and  drugs,  and  pipes,  and  Per- 
sian carpets;  in  whose  upper  chambers  you  may 
have  equivalents  for  pilaff  and  rice, — may  go  to  bed 
afterwards  armed,  for  fear  of  thieves,  and  for  want 
of  them  fight  with  vermin.  Heyde's — tell  it  to  all 
nations — is  clean ;  and  Heyde's,  internally,  is  Ger- 
man ;  but  its  exterior  arrangements  have  been  Rus- 
sianized against  the  Heydian  will;  and  its  inferior 
valetaille  are  all  Muscovite  ;  hence  the  difficulty  of 
entrance  ;  hence  the  listlessness  of  the  outer  domes- 
tics ;  hence  the  necessity  of  the  HAND-BELL  I  am 
about  to  apologize  for  presently,  and  which  is  noth- 
ing more  than  a  substitute  for  the  hand-clapping 
which,  in  the  East,  brings  the  cafegi  with  the  coffee 
and  chibouks,  and  in  the  Arabian  Night's  Entertain- 
ments, the  forty  thousand  black  slaves  with  the  jars 
of  jewels  on  their  heads. 

In  the  worst  town's  worst  inn,   I  will  not   say 
closest  to  the  mere  territorial  Russian  frontier,  but  in 


320  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

German  Russia — say  in  Riga  or  Mittau — there  is, 
instantly  on  the  arrival  of  the  modestest  bachelor 
traveller,  with  the  compactest  of  valises,  a  tremen- 
dous hurry-scurrying  to  and  fro  of  porters,  boots, 
(hansknechts,  the  Germans  call  them,)  chambermaids, 
waiters,  and  even  landlords.  The  carillon  of  a  great 
bell  summons  all  these  hotel  myrmidons  from  the 
vasty  deep  of  the  billiard-room  and  the  corridors  as 
soon  as  your  cab-wheels  are  heard  in  the  courtyard. 
The  landlord  advances  with  the  stereotyped  grin, 
and  the  traditional  hand-rubbing  peculiar  but  com- 
mon to  all  hotel  landlords,  from  mine  host  of  the. 
Garter  in  England  to  mine  host  of  the  Hotel  de 
Londres  at  Riga.  The  hausknecht  shoulders  your 
luggage,  and  disappears  with  it  before  you  say 
whether  you  mean  to  stop  at  the  hotel  or  not; 
the  portier  (pronounced  porteer  ;  tremendous  men 
are  German  porteers — Titans  with  gold  aiguillettes 
on  their  shoulders,  and  selling  on  their  own  private 
account  cigars  the  choicest,  for  those  who  like  them,) 
the  portier  pays  your  cab,  asks  your  name,  and  says 
there  are  no  letters  for  you  as  yet,  (he  has  never  seen 
you  before  in  his  life,)  but  he  rather  thinks  there  will 
be,  next  post.  The  waiter,  or  waiters,  skimmer 
about  undecidedly,  but  ready  for  every  thing,  from  an 
order  for  champagne  to  an  order  for  a  sheet  of  letter- 
paper  ;  the  chambermaid  immediately  converts  herself 
into  a  Mont  Blanc  of  towels  and  a  hot  spring  of  Ice- 
land, in  the  way  of  cans  of  boiling  water ;  the  very 
white-vested  and  night-capped  cook  peeps  through 
the  grated  window  of  his  kitchen — a  prisoner  in  no 
respect  connected  with  Chillon — and  beams  on  you 


MY   BED   AND   BOARD.  321 

a  greasy  ray  of  assurance,  that  though  your  dinner 
may  be  dear  and  dirty,  it  shall  be  hot  and  oleaginous. 
Finally,  the  landlord,  with  the  grin  and  the  rubbed 
hands,  conducts  you  in  a  mincing  canter  up  many 
staircases,  and  through  many  corridors ;  and  you  are 
unpassported,  unbooted,  undressed,  and  in  bed,  in 
about  the  same  manner  I  have  described  in  the  last 
chapter.  Now,  all  of  this  takes  place  inside  Heyde's, 
but  not  one  atom  on  the  exterior  thereof.  You  may 
come  in  a  droschky,  or  one  of  the  flaming  Nevskoi 
omnibuses — licensed  to  carry  other  passengers  be- 
sides human  ones — or  in  a  hearse,  or  in  the  Lord 
Mayor's  coach,  supposing  the  transportation  of  that 
vehicle  to  be  possible ;  but  not  the  slightest  attention 
will  be  paid  to  you,  till  you  get  in.  You  might  as 
well  be  that  Mr.  Ferguson  who  was  told,  that  al- 
though other  matters  might  be  arranged  on  an  am- 
icable footing,  he  could  not  lodge  there  (wherever 
"  there  "  was)  on  any  consideration.  Inside  Heyde's 
there  is  pleasant  gnashing  of  teeth  over  a  good  Ger- 
man dinner  ;  outside  Heyde's  there  is  wailing  at  the 
apparent  impossibility  of  getting  any  dinner  at  all. 

But  I  am  inside  Heyde's  now,  and  have  my  bed 
and  board  there.  I  stay  at  Heyde's  a  month  and 
mark  its  ways,  and  note  them  with  the  informer's 
pen.  To  have  done  with  the  apologies,  I  hope  I 
have  explained  that  outer  delay  on  the  Heydian 
frontier  satisfactorily ;  to  have  done  with  the  hand- 
bell let  me  tell  you  that  unless  you  have  your  own 
servant  with  you  (and  to  have  a  servant  I  should 
counsel  every  traveller  in  Russia  who  possesses  the 
means ;  and  if  he  possess  them  not,  what  the  deuce 

14* 


322  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

is  the  good  of  his  travelling  in  Russia  at  all  ?  you 
have  not  the  slightest  chance  of  having  any  attention 
paid  to  your  wishes  as  regards  refreshment,  or  any 
thing  else  unless  you  tinkle  a  hand-bell.  The  Rus- 
sians understand  wire-bells  no  more  than  they  do 
chimes ;  they  must  have  the  immediate  and  discord- 
ant jingle.  It  is  no  good  calling  "Waiter!"  "  Gar- 
9on!"  "Tchelovek!"  or  «  Kellner!"— without  the 
bell.  Tchelovek,  or  as  the  case  may  be,  caUs  "  Sitch- 
ass ! "  (directly)  but  cometh  not;  but,  ring  your  hand- 
bell (Kolokol)  and  he  is  at  your  beck  and  call 
instantaneously.  He  hears  and  obeys.  He  will 
bring  you  any  thing.  He  will  stand  on  his  head  if 
you  gratify  him  with  copecks  sufficient. 

Very  good  to  me  are  my  bed  and  board  at 
Heyde's.  Cheerful  when  I  wish  it.  Lonely  when 
I  so  desire  it.  Let  us  have  the  lonely  object  first. 

I  have  bought  at  an  Italian  artists'  colourman's  on 
the  Nevskoi,  un  pinceau  de  Rafaelle, — a  box  of 
water-colours, — Newman,  Soho  Square ;  how  strange 
the  Prince  of  Wales's  plumes  and  "  Ich  dien "  on 
the  cakes  look  here,  in  Muscovy! — at  a  price  for 
which  I  could  have  purchased  a  handsome  dressing- 
case  and  fittings,  in  London  and  Paris.  When  I 
am  tired  of  the  noise  and  turmoil  of  the  buffet  (for 
I  am  alone  in  Russia,  as  yet,  and  have  very  few 
acquaintances  and  no  friends)  I  retire  into  the  fam- 
ily vault,  and  make  sketches  of  the  strange  things 
and  people  I  have  seen  in  the  streets.  They  are 
very  much  in  the  penny-valentine  manner  of  art — 
pre-Adamite,  rather  than  pre-Rafaellite.  Then  I 
make  manuscript  transcripts  of  matters  Russian  that 


MY  BED  AND  BOARD.  323 

have  been  written  on  the  tables  of  my  memory  dur- 
ing the  day,  on  infinitesimal  scraps  of  paper  in  a 
handwriting  whose  minuteness  causes  me  not  to 
despair  of  being  able  to  earn  my  living  some  day 
by  writing  the  decalogue  within  the  circumference 
of  a  shilling.  These,  being  desperately  afraid — per- 
haps needlessly — of  spies  and  duplicate-key  posses- 
sors, I  hide  furtively  in  the  lining  of  my  hat,  won- 
dering whether — as  usually  happens  to  me — I  shall 
manage  to  lose  my  hat  in  some  steamboat-cabin  or 
railway-carriage  before  I  land  in  England,  and  be 
compelled  to  purchase  in  Dover  or  Brighton  (I  will 
except  Southampton,  whose  hats  are  excellent)  the 
hardest,  heaviest,  shiniest  of  English  country-made 
Paris  velvet-naps.  My  last  hat  was  a  Dover  one, 
and  impressed  such  a  bright  crimson  fillet  on  my 
forehead  that  I  must  have  looked,  uncovered,  like 
the  portrait  of  one  of  those  Jesuit  missionaries  you 
see  in  the  Propaganda,  who  have  gone  to  China, 
and  have  been  martyred.  There  is  amalgamated 
with  this  low  art  and  furtive  note-making,  a  strong 
suspicion  of  a  Turkish  chibouk  somewhere  in  the 
room — a  real  Turkish  one,  with  a  cherry-stick  tube 
— no  mouthpiece  (amber  is  a  delusion,  save  for 
show, — kiss  the  pure  wooden  orifice  with  your  own 
lips  and  let  the  latakia  ascend  into  your  soul  to 
soften  and  enliven  it)  and  a  deep  red  clay  bowl,  in- 
scribed with  fantastic  characters  in  thready-gold  and 
as  fragile  as  the  tender  porcelain — the  egg  shell 
china — our  great  grandmothers  really  delighted  in, 
and  our  contemporaries  say  they  delight  in,  and 
don't.  Also,  between  this  and  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia, 


324  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

there  is,  perhaps,  on  a  table  in  the  family  vault,  a 
largish  tumbler  filled  with  a  steaming  liquid  of  a 
golden  colour,  in  which  floats  a  thin  slice  of  lemon. 
It  is  TEA  :  the  most  delicious,  the  most  soothing,  the 
most  thirst-allaying  drink  you  can  smoke  withal  in 
summer  time,  and  in  Russia.  But  it  is  not  to  be 
imagined  that,  because  this  tumbler  of  tea  is  exqui- 
site, I  have  foresworn  cakes — or  ale. 

I  have  grown  to  love  the  family  vault;  it  is 
gloomy,  but  cool  and  clean ;  it  is  so  large  that  I  am 
continually  finding  out  new  walks  about  it,  and  con- 
tinually exercising  myself  in  its  outlying  districts. 
There  is  a  fair  quantity  of  furniture  dispersed  about 
its  roomy  suburbs,  but  this  is  so  thoroughly  inade- 
quate, when  its  size  is  taken  into  consideration,  that 
were  Heyde  (represented  by  Barnabay)  to  furnish  it 
thoroughly,  so  as  to  give  it  an  air  of  being  decently 
crowded  with  movables,  I  doubt  not  but  that  those 
enterprising  brothers  would  be  ruined  hip  and  thigh. 

My  vault  has  many  windows ;  but  from  every  one 
of  them  I  have  a  (to  me)  pleasant  view.  There  is 
the  kitchen  aspect.  'The  kitchen  is  not  on  the  base- 
ment, but  on  a  first  floor,  on  a  level  with  my  vault — 
which,  in  its  mortuary  character,  should  properly  be 
on  the  basement  also ;  but,  in  this  astonishing  land 
they  even  have  their  churches  one  above  the  other 
in  floors :  the  summer  church  in  the  parlour,  the 
winter  church  in  the  garret.  The  kitchen's  conti- 
guity to  me  is  not  near  enough  to  be  olfactorily  dis- 
agreeable, but  near  enough  for  me  (with  the  aid  of 
an  opera-glass,  for  I  am  wellnigh  as  blind  as  a 
mole)  to  descry  from  my  windows  interiors  that 


MY  BED   AND   BOARD.  325 

would  have  driven  Ostade  crazy ;  bits  of  still  life 
whose  portrayal  would  have  made  the  fortune  of 
Gerard  Dow;  green-stuffs  and  salads  whose  every 
leaf  Mieris  would  have  doted  on ;  effects  of  firelight 
and  daylight  combined,  from  stewpan-laden  fur- 
naces, that  Schalken  would  have  loved  to  paint,  but 
would  have  failed  in  reproducing. 

The  cook — rosy,  corpulent,  and  clad  in  gravy- 
stained  white  from  tasselled  nightcap  to  flapping 
slippers — i&  a  German,  a  free  German — a  Hamburg 
man,  who  but  he.  He  fears  nor  knout,  nor  pleiti, 
nor  rod,  nor  stick,  nor  Siberian  pleasure  jaunt.  He 
is  a  Canterbury  Tale  cook  to  look  upon  :  portly,  jo- 
vial, with  a  rich,  husky,  real-turtle-soup-bred  voice, 
which  he  ladles  from  a  tureen  rather  than  from  his 
throat,  and  which  I  hear  rolling  in  rich  oily  waves 
through  the  kitchen  as  he  lectures  his  subordinates 
in  bad  Russian.  He  has  many  subordinates.  One 
lank,  cadaverous  young  Teuton,  his  nephew,  who 
came  from  Cassel,  and  is  always  whining  to  go  back 
to  Cassel,  and  who,  from  the  distaste  he  gives  me, 
seeing  him  putting  his  fingers  into  the  sauces  so  often, 
I  unequivocatingly  wish  would  go  back  to  Cassel 
immediately.  Two  or  three  bearded  acolytes,  in  the 
usual  pink  shirts  and  etceteras,  who  spill  more  than 
they  cook,  and  break  more  than  they  spill,  and  are 
not  kicked  and  cuffed  for  clumsiness,  I  think,  much 
more  than  they  deserve.  And,  finally,  this  field  mar- 
shal of  cooks  has  a  flying  cohort  of  culinary  Ama- 
zons, nimble-fingered,  quick-witted  girls,  with  col- 
oured kerchiefs  on  their  heads,  who  fly  about  from 
point  to  point,  baste,  stir,  stew,  fry,  dish  up,  and  it 


326  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

strikes  me,  do  the  major  part  of  the  cooking  at  the 
Hotel  Heyde.  Of  course  our  chief  cook's  directing 
genius  and  superintending  eye  are  everything,  as  to 
flavour.  I  may  here  mention  a  curious  example  of 
that  laziness  and  desire  for  an  easy,  abundant  pump- 
kin leading  life  inherent  (through  slavery,  but  to  be 
eradicated  by  freedom)  which  you  find  in  Ivan  the 
moujik  and  Quashie  the  nigger.  A  peasant  once 
told  me,  or  rather  the  gentleman  who  was  interpret- 
ing for  me,  that  of  all  professions  in  life  he  should 
prefer  that  of  head-cook  in  the  house  of  a  seigneur ; 
for,  argued  he,  what  have  you  to  do  ?  just  dip  your 
finger  in  the  sauce  and  lick  it,  and  the  babas  (the 
women)  do  all  the  rest.  He  had  no  idea  of  there 
being  any  skill  in  the  world  save  that  purely  man- 
ual. Sometimes  Heyde' s  chief  cook  condescends 
to  hold  one  end  of  a  napkin  for  straining  asparagus- 
soup  purposes.  Sometimes  it  will  please  his  cook- 
ship  to  go  through  a  light-hearted  bit  of  legerdemain 
with  two  stewpans ;  but  his  ordinary  position  is 
with  his  broad  back  against  the  dresser,  and  his 
broad  face  turned  towards  the  chief  furnace,  a  paper 
cigarette  between  his  pulpy  lips  (he  smokes  in  the 
kitchen,  this  bold  cook)  and  a  tall  tankard  of  real 
Bavarian  beer  (they  have  it  real  at  Heyde's)  by  his 
side.  Who  expects  field-marshals  to  head  armies 
as  well  as  direct  their  movements  ?  Our  Welling- 
ton, to  be  sure,  was  fond  of  exposing  his  life,  and 
William  of  Orange  was  only  tolerable  and  in  good 
humour  when  he  was  in  immediate  personal  danger. 
But  Napoleon  sat  in  a  chair  in  the  rear  of  Water- 
loo's carnage  till  he  mounted  that  famous  pale  horse 


MY   BED   AND   BOARD.  327 

to  fly  from  it.  Edward  the  Third  witnessed  the 
battle  of  Crecy  from  a  windmill,  and  Louis  the  Fif- 
teenth had  his  wig  dressed  while  his  household 
troops  were  charging  the  English  guards.  Our  cook 
looks  on,  directs,  but  does  not  fight.  Who  can  carry 
the  baton  of  marshal  and  Brown  Bess  at  the  same 
time? 

There  is  always  a  prodigious  laughing  and  scream- 
ing, and,  if  truth  must  be  told — romping — going  on 
in  this  kitchen.  The  chief  cook  himself  is  a  gay 
man,  and  flings  his  handkerchief  to  one  of  the  ker- 
chiefed damsels ;  the  girls  generally  keep  up  a  shrill 
clamour  of  tongues,  to  which  the  noise  of  a  well- 
stocked  poultry-yard,  where  Cochin- Chinas  in  good 
health  and  voice  are  not  wanting,  may  serve  as  a 
comparison.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Cassel-sick 
German  (who  is  evidently  a  misanthrope)  hits  them 
occasionally  with  saucepans,  or  otherwise  abuses 
them,  for  the  prattle  and  laughter  frequently  change 
to  sounds  unmistakably  those  of  invective  and  an- 
ger ;  and  there  is  one  young  lady,  very  ugly  she  is, 
(I  have  her  now  under  the  lens  of  my  opera-glass,) 
who  discourses  so  loudly  on  some  real  or  fancied 
grievance,  with  such  vehement  gesticulation  and 
such  frenzied  utterance,  that  I  am  apprehensive, 
every  moment,  she  will  fall  down  in  a  fit.  But  she 
does  not — thinking,  perhaps,  that  were  she  to  do  so, 
she  would  be  brought  to  her  senses  by  the  outward 
application  of  melted  butter  or  hot  gravy. 

This  cook,  I  learn,  when  I  am  not  in  the  solitude 
of  the  family  vault,  is  an  excellent  artist.  If  you 
make  him  a  present  of  a  blue  bill — say  five  roubles 


328  A  JOURXEY  DUE  NORTH. 

— and  order  a  dinner — say  for  self  and  friends — he 
will  cook  you  a  repast  succulent  enough  to  make  a 
bear  leave  off  honey ;  which  expression  may  be  taken 
as  equivalent  to  our  "  good  enough  to  make  a  cat 
speak."  He  has  one  little  fault:  this.  After  any 
extra  exertion  in  the  culinary  line,  he  departs  in  a 
droschky  to  the  house  of  a  friend  of  his,  likewise  a 
German  and  a  tailor,  who  resides  in  a  remote  Pere- 
oulok  in  the  neigbourhood  of  the  Alexander-Nevskoi 
convent,  and  there  for  three  or  more  days  and  nights 
inebriates  himself  with  Brantwein  or  corn  brandy, 
specially  imported  from  Germany  by  his  sartorial 
friend :  blowing  a  trumpet  from  time  to  time  as  a 
relaxation.  Meanwhile,  the  culinary  arrangements 
are  under  the  control  of  the  misanthrope  who 
wants  to  go  back  to  Cassel,  and  the  dinners  are 
very  bad. 

Another  view  I  have,  of  a  huge  court-yard,  sur- 
rounded by  staring  walls — all  belonging  to  Heyde 
— round  which  run  pent-houses  or  sheds,  and  be- 
neath which  are  harboured  droschkies,  whose  gaber- 
dined  drivers  snore  on  box  and  bench  till  a  pink- 
shirted  messenger  comes  to  pummel  them  into 
action,  and  tell  them  that  a  fare 'is  waiting  for  them. 
The  roofs  of  these  pent-houses  are  leaded,  and  on 
them  (how  keeping  their  perpendicular  I  know  not) 
more  kerchiefed  women  are  beating  carpets ;  they 
beat  carpets  at  Heyde's — tell  it  again  to  the  nations 
— with  willow  rods  ;  and  more  pink-shirted  men  are 
thrashing  the  dust  out  of  fur  pelisses,  or  peacefully 
slumbering  on  their  diaphragms  in  the  sunshine. 
Another  view  I  have,  through  a  window,  and  round 


MY   BED   AND    BOARD.  329 

a  corner,  of  a  strip  of  thoroughfare  between  two 
blocks  of  houses,  which  from  the  droschkies,  the 
gray-coated  soldiers,  and  the  clouds  of  dust,  must 
be  either  the  Cadetten-Linie,  or  the  Line  (or  street) 
parallel  to  it.  And  last  of  all,  I  can  peep  into  a 
little  private  court-yard — I  suspect  the  one  apper- 
taining to  Barnabay's  own  separate  and  special 
apartments — where  two  little  children,  a  boy  and 
a  girl,  are  gravely  exercising  themselves  on  stilts. 
Stilts  in  Russia ! 

Stilts  in  Russia ;  and  why  not  more  than  these  ? 
for  as,  dazed  with  the  blinding  sunlight,  I  come  into 
the  gloomy  interior  of  the  family  vault,  and  cast 
myself  into  an  easy  old  arm-chair,  (it  would  hold 
two  with  comfort,)  I  hear  from  a  wandering  band 
that  have  just  entered  the  Balschoi-dvor,  or  great 
court-yard,  first  the  hacknied  but  always  delightful 
strains  of  the  Trovatore,  and  then — but  I  must  be 
dreaming — no  ;  they  are  actually  playing  it,  She 
wore  a  Wreath  of  Roses. 

I  see  it  all  now.  I  have  only  been  .a  few  miles 
away  from  town  to  write  this  journey.  t)ue  North 
is  but  the  North  Kent  Railway :  this  is  Dumble- 
downdeary,  not  Wassily-Ostrow :  the  Shoulder  of 
Mutton  Inn  and  not  Heyde's  Hotel.  Be  it  as  it 
may,  it  is  extremely  hot ;  and  if  there  be  any  law 
in  Russia  or  in  Kent  against  taking  a  siesta  in  the 
middle  of  the  day,  I  have  violated  it.  I  go  fast 
asleep,  and  live  a  life  I  never  shall  live  fifteen  hun- 
dred miles  away  ;  then  wake  to  hear  the  cook's  bad 
Russian,  and  to  find  the  sun  a  trifle  lower  in  the 
heaven. 


330  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

This  is  the  time  for  a  gondola  on  the  Neva ;  so  I 
leave  the  family  vault  to  the  ghosts,  and  Heyde's  to 
its  devices. 


XV. 

I  BEGIN   TO   SEE   LIFE. 

THEY  do,  certainly,  see  a  great  deal  of  Life  at 
Heyde's.  There  is  a  convivial  phrase,  called,  "  keep- 
ing it  up,"  which  the  Heydians  seem  perfectly  well 
acquainted  with,  and  act  upon  to  a  tremendous 
extent.  If  I  come  home  from  a  ball  very  late, — 
or  rather  very  early — say  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, I  find  the  jovial  men  who  dwell  at  Heyde's  just 
sitting  down  to  supper,  and  ordering  tankards  of 
strong  beer,  (they  have  the  genuine  Baerisch  here, 
and  it  costs. thirty  copecks — a  shilling  a  pint,*)  as  a 

*  There  is  a  very  excellent  beer  (Piva)  brewed  at  Moscow, 
which  is  (being  Russian)  of  course  abandoned  to  the  naoujiks. 
Nous  Autres  are  very  fond  of  Dublin  bottled  stout.  At  Domi- 
nique's cafe,  on  the  Nevosko'i,  feeling  one  night  athirst  for  beer, 
I  asked  for  and  obtained  a  pint  bottle  of  the  brown  and  frothy 
beverage  that  has  made  the  name  of  Guinness  famous  all  over 
the  world.  For  this  same  pint  bottle  of  beer  I  was  charged  the 
small  sum  of  one  rouble — three  and  twopence.  An  English  gen- 
tleman, long  resident  in  Russia,  and  intimately  conversant  with 
things  Muscovite,  has  since  told  me  that  I  had  been  swindled,  and 
that  I  ought  not  to  have  been  mulcted  in  more  than  half  a  rouble. 
However,  I  know  that  I  paid  it ;  and  the  consciousness  of  having 


I  BEGIN  TO   SEE   LIFE.  331 

preparative  for  subsequent  sound  and  steady  drink- 
ing. If  I  emerge  from  the  family  vault,  to  dine,  to 
'smoke,  to  "coffecate"  myself,  or  to  read  the  news- 
papers, still  find  I  the  Heydians  keeping  it  up  with 
unabated  and  unwearied  joviality.  All  night  long 
too, — at  least  whenever  I  wake  during  that  season 
when  deep  sleep  should  fall  upon  men,  but  falleth 
not,  alas,  upon  me ! — I  hear  the  clicking  of  the  balls 
in  the  billiard-room,  the  shouts  of  the  conquerors, 
the  "  Gleich,  gleich  !  "  or  "  Sitchasse  !  sitchasse  !  " 
(Coming !  coming !)  of  the  waiters.  In  the  morning, 
going  into  the  cafe  to  breakfast  I  find  the  brothers 
Barnabay  with  pale  faces  and  encrimsoned  eyelids, 
telling  dreadful  tales  of  long  keeping  it  up  ;  and  as 
for  Zacharai,  he  has  kept  it  up,  I  imagine,  so  long 
that  he  is  now  kept  down — in  bed — and  does  not 
appear  at  all.  Finding  this  widely-spread  determi- 
nation to  keep  things  up  ;  and  being  rather  tired  of 
loneliness  and  keeping  my  room — or  vault — it  occurs 
to  me  to  keep  it  up  too  ;  so  I  go  into  the  public 
world  of  Heyde's,  and  see  what  it  is  made  of. 

In  that  rapid,  scurrying  journey  I  took  when  the 
two  Ischvostchiks  brought  me  here,  I  spoke  of  the 
spacious  apartments  I  had  traversed.  In  these  the 
Heydians  keep  it  up,, by  night  and  by  day,  and  in 
this  wise. 

There  is  the  Buffet  or  cafe*,  call  it  what  you  will 
— the  Bar  I  call  it.  It  is  not  unlike  a  railway  re- 
been  cheated  out  of  fifty  copecks  did  not  give  me  much  more  sat- 
isfaction than,  I  imagine,  the  worthy  Justice  Shallow  experienced 
when  Sir  John  Falstaff  was  good  enough  to  inform  him  that  he 
owed  him  a  thousand  pounds. 


332  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

freshment-room  ;  for,  traversing  it  longitudinally, 
there  is  a  bar  or  counter,  laden  with  comestibles. 
No  soup,  no  scalding  water  discoloured  and  mis- 
called tea,  no  pork  pies  or  sausage  rolls,  however, 
here  recall  memories  of  Wolverton  and  Swindon. 
The  counter  stores  at  Heyde's  consist  of  that  by 
me  abhorred,  by  others  adored,  condiment,  caviare  : 
caviare  simple,  in  little  yellow  hooped  kegs :  caviare 
spread  on  bread  and  butter :  caviare  artfully  intro- 
duced between  layers  of  pastry.  Then  there  are  all 
the  dried,  and  smoked,  and  pickled  fishes,  on  little 
crusts  of  bread,  like  what  we  call  tops  and  bottoms  ; 
all  the  condiments  in  the  way  of  spiced  and  mari- 
naded meats,  highly-peppered  sausages,  and  Russian 
substitutes  for  our  brawn  and  collared  viands ;  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken,  as  being  purchasable 
in  the  refreshment-room  of  the  Cronstadt  pyroscaphe. 
There  are  crabs,  too,  and  craw-fish,  and  some  mys- 
terious molluscs  floating  in  an  oleaginous  pickle, 
and  which,  shell  for  shell,  and  saucer  for  saucer, 
bear  a  curious  family  likeness  to  those  immortal 
WHELKS  that,  displayed  on  stalls,  supported  by  kid- 
ney puddings  and  hot  eel-soup,  were  once  the  great- 
est glories  of  the  pillars  of  Clement's  Inn. 

Now,  all  these  condiments, are  simply  incentives 
to  appetite.  You,  who  have  travelled  in  Denmark 
and  Sweden,  know  that  in  private  as  well  as  public 
houses,  such  buffets  or  counters  are  set  out,  and 
that  dinner  is  invariably  prefaced  by  a  mouthful  of 
caviare  or  salted  fish,  and  a  dram  of  raw  spirits. 
We  have  but  a  very  faint  reflex  of  this  epigasfrium- 
spurring  custom  in  Western  Europe : — in  France, 


I   BEGIN   TO    SEE   LIFE.  333 

in  the  oysters  and  chablis  (or  Sauterne)  by  which  a 
dinner  bien  monte  is  preceded ;  in  England,  in  the 
glass  of  sherry  and  bitters,  in  which  gastronomes 
will  sometimes  indulge  before  dinner.  In  Russia, 
dram-drinking  and  condiment-eating  preparatory  to 
the  prandial  meal  are  customs  very  widely  dissem- 
inated. In  every  restaurant  you  find  such  a  counter 
— in  every  wealthy  merchant's  house.  In  old  Rus- 
sian families  too — noble  families,  I  mean — there  are 
the  buffet,  the  caviare,  and  the  drams ;  it  is  only 
among  the  tip-top  specimens  of  Nous  Autres — the 
great  counts  and  princes,  in  whose  magnificent 
saloons  you  forget  (for  a  moment)  that  you  are 
among  savages,  and  believe  yourself  to  be  in  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain,  that  you  find  a  disdain  of 
this  homely,  Sclavonic,  tippling  custom.  The  dram 
and  fish  buffet  is  abolished,  the  dinner  is  served 
according  to  the  most  approved  models  set  forth  by 
Ude  and  Caresne ;  but  even  under  these  circum- 
stances a  slight  innovation  upon  the  Median  and 
Persian  discipline  of  a  Parisian  cuisine  takes  place. 
The  apparently  exiled  drams  and  condiments  are 
handed  round  to  the  guests  by  stealthy  lacqueys. 
This  is  a  mean,  furtive,  underhanded  way,  I  take 
it,  of  drinking  one's  "  morning,"  or  rather  "  evening." 
We  can  excuse  him  who  takes  his  grog  honestly, 
manfully,  openly ;  but  what  shall  we  say  of  the  sur- 
reptitious toper  who  creeps  home  to  bed,  hides  the 
gin-bottle  under  the  pillow,  and  gets  up  to  drink 
drams  while  honest  men  are  sound  asleep.  In  the 
United  States  of  America,  I  have  heard  that  pickled 
oysters  and  small  cubes  of  salted  cod  are  frequently 


334  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

to  be  met  with  on  the  marble  bars  of  the  palatial 
hotels  ;  but  I  am  given  to  understand,  that  they  are 
regarded  less  as  incentives  to  eating,  than  as  provo- 
catives to  drinking.  It  is  well  known  that  it  is 
impossible  for  our  Transatlantic  cousins  to  annex 
the  Universe,  rig  the  market  for  the  millennium,  and 
chaw  up,  whip,  and  burst  up  creation  generally, 
without  a  given  number  of  "  drinks  "  (some  authori- 
ties say  fifty,  some  seventy-five)  per  diem.  It  hap- 
pens sometimes  that  the  Democratic  stomach  grows 
palled,  the  Locofoco  digestive  organs  shaky,  the 
Hard  Shell  nerves  in  an  unsatisfactory  condition. 
It  is  then  that  the  pickled  oysters  and  salted  cod 
whets  come  into  requisition.  I  wonder  that  some 
of  the  enterprising  aides-de-camp  to  Bacchus — the 
ginshop  and  tavern  keepers  of  London — do  not 
take  a  leaf  from  the  Russo- American  book!  Dried 
sprats  might  cause  the  "  superior  cream  gin  "  to  go 
off  gayly,  and  little  slabs  of  kippered-salmon  might 
cause  an  immense  augmentation  in  the  demand  for 
the  "  Gatherings  of  Long  John,"  or  the  "  Real  Glen- 
livat,"  or  the  "  Genuine  L.  L."  As  it  is,  broiled 
bones,  cayenned  kidneys,  and  devilled  biscuits,  are 
luxuries  confined  to  the  rich.  Why  should  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  be  deprived  of  the  same 
facilities  for  the  descent  of  that  Avernus  which 
leads  to  the  devil,  as  are  enjoyed  by  their  more  for- 
tunate brethren  ? 

As,  in  a  "  Journey  Due  North,"  it  is  competent  for 
me,  I  hope,  to  notice  the  peculiarities  of  the  coun- 
tries one  may  traverse  before  reaching  the  Ultima 
Thule,  I  may  mention  that,  in  the  taverns  and  beer- 


I   BEGIN   TO    SEE   LIFE.  335 

houses  of  Belgium  and  Holland,  although  no  con- 
diments are  sold  at  the  bar,  women  and  boys  are 
continually  circulating  round  the  tables  with  bas- 
kets, in  which  are  hard-boiled  eggs,  crawfish,  and 
sometimes  periwinkles,  which  they  offer  for  sale, to 
the  beer-drinkers. 

Although  Heyde's  is  a  German  hotel,  and  the 
younger  Barnabay  tells  me  that  he  is  a  Lutheran, 
there  is  in  the  buffet  the  ordinary  inevitable  joss,  or 
saint's  image.  He  is  a  very  seedy  saint,  very  tar- 
nished and  smoke-blackened,  and  they  have  hung 
him  up  very  high  indeed,  in  one  corner.  He  is  so 
little  thought  of,  that  Heyde's  is  the  only  public 
room  I  yet  know  in  Petersburg,  in  which  the  guests 
sit,  habitually,  with  their  hats  on.  Nowhere  else, 
in  shop,  lavka,  Angliski  or  Ruski  Magazin,  would 
such  a  thing«be  tolerated.  The  hat  goes  off  as  soon 
as  one  goes  into  any  place  sanctified  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  joss.  When  I  go  to  buy  a  pair  of 
gloves,  or  a  book,  or  a  quire  of  paper,  I  take  off  my 
hat  reverentially ;  for  is  not  Saint  Nicholas,  or  Saint 
Waldemar,  glowering  at  me  from  among  bales  of 
goods  or  cardboard  boxes,  blushing  with  the  bright- 
est paint,  and  winking  with  aU  his  jewels,  real  or 
sham !  The  shopkeeper  I  know  expects  it.  I  hope 
he  appreciates  the  respect  which  I,  a  heretic  and 
pig,  pay  to  his  harmless  superstitions.  The  joss  at 
Heyde's  is  hung  there,  not  because  Heyde  or  any  of 
its  foregathering  belong  to  the  Greek  Church,  but 
because  the  place  is  frequented  indifferently  by 
Germans  and  Russians,  and  the  latter  might  take 
offence  at  the  absence  of  the  religious  symbol. 


336  A  JOUKNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

The  same  deference  to  the  dominant  party  may  be 
observed  in  numbers  of  the  shops  kept  by  foreigners 
in  St.  Petersburg.  Perfumers  from  Lyons,  tailors 
from  Vienna,  linendrapers  from  London,  milliners 
from  Paris,  statuette-sellers  from  Milan,  bow  and 
are  silent  in  the  presence  of  the  stick.  In  the  fash- 
ionable modistes  on  the  Nevskoi  and  in  the  Balschoi 
Morskaia  it  is  by  no  means  uncommon  to  see  a 
really  magnificent  saint's  image,  blazing  with  gild- 
ing and  tinsel,  and  enshrined  in  costly  lace.  There 
is  nothing  like  burning  a  candle  to  St.  Nicholas — 
old  St.  Nicholas,  I  mean. 

Mentioning  what  I  supposed  in  my  first  crude 
notions  of  Russian  manners  to  be  a  custom  gen- 
erally prevalent  in  Russia,  that  of  taking  off  the  hat, 
and  remaining  uncovered,  while  in  any  room  or  shop 
in  which  there  was  a  saint's  image,  I  have  now, 
however,  to  confess  that  before  I  left  Russia  my 
ideas  on  the  subject  underwent  a  considerable 
change.  I  had  a  great  deal  of  shopping  to  get 
through  before  leaving  St.  Petersburg,  principally 
with  a  view  to  the  purchase  of  curiosities  for  anx- 
ious friends  at  home ;  and  as  foreigners  always  have 
about  three  times  more  to  pay  for  what  they  pur- 
chase than  Russians  have,  I  always  took  care  to 
secure  the  services  of  a  Russian  acquaintance,  to 
whom  I  confided  my  pocket-book  and  shopping 
commissions.  It  was  a  source  of  much  chuckling 
to  me  to  see  my  Muscovite  agent  beat  down,  higgle, 
haggle,  and  barter,  with  some  merchant  in  the  Gos- 
tinnoi-dvor, — say  for  a  writing-case,  an  embroidered 
sash,  or  a  model  samovar,  of  which  I  wished  to 


I   BEGIN  TO   SEE   LIFE.  337 

become  the  possessor,  and  when  he  had  ultimately 
come  to  terms  and  secured  the  article  at  perhaps  a 
tenth  of  the  price  originally  demanded  for  it,  to 
watch  the  rage  of  the  merchant  when  my  Russian 
friend  laughingly  informed  him  that  the  sash  or  the 
portmanteau  was  for  an  Angliski.  I  noticed  in 
these  shopping  excursions  that  my  Russian  acquaint- 
ances, whether  they  were  wearers  of  the  cloak,  of  the 
tchinovnik,  or  the  gray  capote  of  the  guardsman, 
never  removed  their  caps  when  they  entered  a  shop, 
however  prominent  the  saintly  image  might  be.  I 
asked  one  of  Nous  Autres  one  day,  as  gently  and 
discreetly  as  I  could,  why  he  departed  from  what  I 
had  conceived  to  be  an  inviolable  custom  ?  "  Par- 
bleu!  "  he  answered,  "  who  is  to  tell  us  to  uncover 
ourselves?  The  Gassudar?  Bon!  but  the  Tchorni- 
Narod — the  black  people — the  fellows  who  sell  soap 
and  leather.  Allans  done  !  "  This  gentleman  was 
right  in  his  generation.  Who  indeed,  in  a  country 
where  WE  are  every  thing,  is  to  bid  us  to  be  uncov- 
ered? Fancy  a  lizard  telling  a  crocodile  that  he 
opened  his  mouth  too  wide. 

Touching  upon  hats — though  still  at  Heyde's  :  I 
think  this  is  not  the  worst  of  places  to  observe  that 
the  Russians  are  the  greatest  hat-lifters  in  the  world. 
They  need  build  their  hats,  as  they  do,  of  a  species 
of  brown  paper  covered  with  a  silk  or  beaver  nap ; 
for  were  the  brims  of  any  hard  material,  they  would 
inevitably .  be  worn  out  after  one  day's  course  of 
salutations.  Everybody  takes  off  his  hat,  cap,  hel- 
met, or  shako,  to  everybody.  The  Emperor  takes 
his  off  to  begin  with,  when  he  bids  his  hundred 
15 


338  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

thousand  "  children "  good  morning  at  a  review. 
The  humblest  moujik,  meeting  another  as  humble 
as  he,  takes  off  his  hat  and  bows  low.  If  very 
drunk,  he  not  only  takes  off  his  hat  and  bows  lower, 
but  positively  refuses  to  be  covered  till  the  interview 
be  terminated,  and  continues  bowing  and  bowing 
like  the  Chinese  Tombolas  we  used  to  see  on  man- 
tel pieces.  The  hat,  indeed,  is  much  more  off  the 
head  than  on. 

And  what  manner  of  men  are  the  midday,  and 
the  midnight,  and-not-going-home-till-morning,  rev- 
ellers at  Heyde's  ?  •  There  are  portly  German  mer- 
chants from  Leipsic  and  Stettin,  come  to  buy  or  see ; 
there  are  keen,  dressy,  dandified  Hamburgers — no 
thumb-ringed,  slow-going,  sauerkraut-eating  Ger- 
mans these — but  men  who  combine  business  with 
pleasure,  and,  speculating  feverishly  in  corn  and 
hides  and  tallow  all  day,  drink  and  smoke  and  dance 
and  play  dominoes  and  billiards,  and  otherwise  dissi- 
pate themselves,  all  night.  What  lives  !  Wondrous 
travellers  are  these  Hamburg  men.  They  know  all 
the  best  hotels  and  best  tables  d'hote  all  over  the 
continent.  They  talk  familiarly  of  Glasgow  and 
Dublin,  Wolverhampton  and  Cheltenham.  Their 
Paris  they  know  by  heart ;  and  there  is  another 
country  they  are  strangely  acquainted  with — Italy  ; 
not  artistic  Italy,  musical  Italy,  religious  Italy,  but 
commercial  Italy.  One  Hamburger  tells  me  about 
Venice.  He  touches  not  on  St.  Mark's  square,  the 
Bridge  of  Sighs,  or  the  Bucentaur.  He  confines  his 
travelling  reminiscences  to  the  custom-house  regula- 
tions, and  the  navigation  dues  exacted  by  the  Lorn- 


I   BEGIN   TO    SEE   LIFE.  339 

bardo  Venetian  government.  He  has  had  ventures 
to  Leghorn,  and  has  done  a  pretty  stroke  of  business 
at  Naples,  and  has  an  agent  at  Palermo.  I  would 
call  him  a  Goth,  but  that  it  is  much  better  to  call 
him  a  Hamburger.  Then  there  are  German  ship- 
brokers,  German  sharebrokers,  and  a  few  of  the 
wealthier  German  tradesmen  of  St.  Petersburg,  who 
come  here  to  quaff  their  nightly  bumpers,  and  play 
their  nightly  games  at  dominoes.  The  Russian  ele- 
ment consists  of  students  from  the  University  of  St. 
Petersburg,  and  pupils  from  the  Ecole  de  Droit, 
(equivalent  to  our  English  law  students,)  and  these 
alumni  wear  cocked  hats  and  swords.  Some  of 
these  days  I  am  certain  the  Russian  government  in 
its  rage  for  making  every  thing  military  will  insist 
upon  the  clergy  wearing  cocked  hats  and  swords ; 
we  shall  have  the  Archbishop  of  Novgorod  in  a 
shako,  and  the  patriarch  Nikon  in  a  cocked  hat. 
Finally,  there  are  a  few  Russian  officers,  but  not 
guardsmen.  Heyde's  is  not  aristocratic  enough  for 
them ;  and  the  Russian  officers  of  the  line,  though 
all  noble  ex  ojficio,  are  as  poor  as  Job. 

It  is  among  these  motley  people  that  I  begin  to 
see  life,  and  smoke  paper  cigars,  and  play  billiards 
(badly),  and  talk  indifferent  French  and  worse  Ger- 
man, and  a  few  words  of  Russian,  at  which  my 
acquaintances  laugh.  For  I  have  made  acquaint- 
ances already,  athough  no  friends. 

An  acquaintance  with  whom  I  have  already  ad- 
journed once  or  twice  to  the  condiment-counter,  and 
whom  I  am  now  even  attempting  to  initiate  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  recondite  game  of  cribbage,  (our 


340  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

cribbage-board  is  a  sheet  of  paper  in  which  we  stick 
pins,)  is  a  gentleman  whose  name,  inasmuch  as  he 
holds,  I  presume,  to  this  day,  an  official  appointment 
under  the  imperial  government,  I  will  veil  with  the 
classical  pseudonym  of  Cato  the  Censor.  Cato  is  a 
gross  fat  man,  an  amalgam  of  puddings,  a  mountain 
of  flesh ;  when  I  meet  him  abroad,  as  I  do  some- 
times, having  twenty-five  copecks-worth  of  droschky, 
I  pity  the  Ischvostchik,  and  the  horse,  and  the  drosch- 
ky springs,  (had  they  sense  to  be  pitiable,)  and  (pro- 
spectively)  Cato  the  Censor  himself,  were  he  to  fall 
off  that  ominously-oscillating  vehicle.  For,  who 
could  pick  him  up  again — a  shattered  fat  man  ?  A 
crane  might  do  it,  or  Archimedes'  lever,  or  a  pair  of 
dock-yard  shears,  but  not  mortal  Boutotsnik  or 
Police-soldier.  When  Cato  laughs,  his  fat  sides 
wag ;  when  he  sits  on  one  of  Heyde's  chairs,  I  trem- 
ble for  that  chair ;  when  he  walks  on  Heyde's  floor, 
the  boards  creak  with  the  agony  of  this  oppression 
of  fat ;  and  I  expect  every  moment  to  see  Cato  sink 
through  the  basement  as  through  a  trap-door. 

Cato  the  Censor  is  a  Tchinovnik,  and  wears  a 
civilian's  uniform,  (that  seems  a  paradox,  but  it  is 
not  one  in  a  land  where  everybody  wears  a  uniform,) 
to  wit,  dark  green  with  double-eagle  buttons,  gilt. 
When  abroad  he  wears  a  long  cloak  with  a  cape, 
and  a  cap  with  a  green  band,  and  a  curious  white- 
and-blue  disk  in  front,  half  button,  half  cockade, 
but  wholly  Chinese.  I  believe  it  to  be  competent 
for  the  Tchinovniks  to  wear,  if  they  choose,  a  tunic ; 
but  Cato,  with  the  usual  fatuity  of  fat  men,  wears 
a  tail-coat  with  the  slimest  and  scantiest  of  tails, 


I   BEGIN  TO   SEE   LIFE.  341 

the  shortest  of  sleeves,  and  the  tightest  of  waists. 
Fat  men,  properly,  should  wear  togas  ;  and  yet  you 
find  them  almost  always  inveterately  addicted  to 
zephyr  jackets.  Cato  has  a  round,  sleek,  bullet  head, 
very  small  feet  in  the  tightest  of  patent  boots — so 
small  that  they  continually  disturb  my  notions  of 
the  centre  of  gravity,  and  make  me  fear  that,  Gate's 
balance  not  being  right,  he  must  needs  topple  over — 
and  very  large,  fat,  soft,  beefy  hands,  whose  princi- 
pal use  and  employment  we  shall  presently  discover. 
For,  why  Cato  the  Censor?  Thus  much:  that 
this  fat  Russian  is  one  of  the  employes  in  the  Im- 
perial "  Bureau  de  Censure,"  (I  do  not  know,  and  it 
would  be  no  use  telling  you  its  Russian  name,)  and 
it  is  his  duty  to  read  through  every  morning,  every 
line  of  every  foreign  newspaper  that  now  lies  on 
Heyde's  table,  and  to  blot  out  every  subversive  ar- 
ticle, every  democratic  paragraph,  every  liberal  word, 
every  comma  or  semicolon  displeasing  to  the  auto- 
cratic regime  of  the  Czar  of  Stickland.  For  in- 
stance, Heyde's  takes  in  the  Illustrated  London 
News,  the  Illustrated  Times,  (that  other  Times, 
which  is  not  illustrated,  is  rigorously  tabooed,)  the 
Constitutionnel,  the  Journal  des  De"bats,  the  Brussels 
Nord,  the  German  Illustrieter  Zeitung,  and  that 
quaint  little  Berlinese  oposcule  the  Kladderadatch. 
These,  with  a  Hamburg  commercial  sheet,  and  a 
grim  little  cohort  of  St.  Petersburg  gazettes  and 
journals,  which,  for  the  political  news  they  contain, 
might  just  as  well  be  sheets  of  blank  paper,  are  the 
only  intellectual  food  we  are  allowed  to  consume  at 
Heyde's.  Cato  of  course  knows  all  languages  ;  and 


342  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

he  goes  through  these  papers  patiently  and  labori- 
ously, at  his  own  private  bureau  in  the  censor's  office. 
When  the  journals  have  been  properly  purified,  he 
and  an  under-clerk,  a  sort  of  gar f  on  de  bureau,  bear- 
ing the  mental  food,  come  down  to  Heyde's ;  the 
under-clerk  deposits  the  newspapers  on  the  reading- 
table,  liquors  at  the  condiment  counter,  and,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  receives,  from  time  to  time,  some 
small  gratuities  in  the  way  of  copecks,  from  Bar- 
nabay.  He  departs,  and  Cato  the  Censor,  forgetting, 
or  at  least  sinking  for  the  time  his  official  capacity? 
sinks  at  once  into  Cato  the  convivialist,  and  keeps  it 
up  till  the  small  hours,  as  gayly  and  persistently  as 
the  most  jovial  of  the  Heydians. 

Formerly,  the  censorship  of  foreign  journals  was 
performed  by  means  of  simple  excision.  The  prun- 
ing-knife,  or  rather  the  axe,  as  Mr.  Puff  would  say, 
was  employed  ;  and  the  objectionable  passages  were 
ruthlessly  cut  out ;  the  excised  journal  presenting,  in 
its  mutilated  condition,  a  lamentable  appearance  of 
raggedness,  "  windowed,"  if  not  looped.  You  had 
to  grin  through  the  bars  of  such  a  newspaper,  and, 
knowing  that  you  were  in  prison,  long  for  the  free- 
dom outside  and  over  the  window.  In  time,  how- 
ever, some  beneficent  minister  of  police  (the  censure 
falls  naturally  within  his  attribute)  discovered  that 
the  bodily  cutting  out  of  part  of  a  column,  involved 
not  only  the  loss  of  the  reverse  side  to  the  reader — 
which  might  very  likely  be  only  a  harmless  narrative 
of  "  extraordinary  longevity  in  a  cat,"  but  also  pos- 
sibly destroyed  some  matter  favourable  directly  or 
indirectly  to  the  interests  of  Holy  Russia — thus  cut- 


I   BEGIN  TO   SEE  LIFE.  343 

ting  off  the  Czar's  own  nose,  as  well  as  the  baneful 
branches  from  the  tree  of  liberty.  So,  a  new  plan 
was  adopted.  The  heretical  matter  was  "  blacked  " 
or  blocked  out,  by  a  succession  of  close  stampings 
with  black  ink  upwards,  downwards,  backwards,  for- 
wards and  diagonally, — exactly  as  the  grain  of  a 
steel  plate  for  mezzotinto  is  raised  by  a  "rocking- 
tool " — till  every  offending  cross  to  a  t  or  dot  to  an  i 
was  obliterated.  The  appearance  of  a  newspaper 
thus  blocked  out  is  very  wonderful.  Sometimes  a 
whole  column  becomes  as  dark  as  Erebus ;  some- 
times one  paragraph  in  an  article  of  foreign  intelli- 
gence will  disappear;  sometimes  two  lines  and  a 
half  in  a  critical  article  on  a  purely  literary  subject, 
perhaps  three  columns  in  length,  will  assume  an 
Ethiopian  hue ;  sometimes  one  line  in  an  advertise- 
ment will  be  numbered  with  the  wonders  of  typog- 
raphy that  were.  The  immediate  why  and  where- 
fore of  all  this,  lies  with  Cato  the  Censor.  He  is 
"  Sir  Oracle,"  and  no  literary  dog  dare  bark  at  him. 
Sometimes  a  few  of  the  old  Heydians  [but  not 
Russians  you  may  be  sure]  banter  him  playfully  as 
to  his  morning's  corrections ;  ask  him  if  he  took  too 
much  "  ponche  "  over  night,  and,  waking  up  in  a 
bad  humour  that  morning,  had  gone  to  work  sav- 
agely with  the  blacking  stamp — I  had  nearly  said' 
bottle — or  whether  he  had  been  sent  for  by  the  Min- 
ister of  Police  and  told  that  he  had  been  far  too 
lenient  lately,  and  must  stamp  out  several  degrees 
more  rigorously  in  future  ?  When  bantered  too  se- 
verely the  fat  man  loses  his  temper,  throws  over  his 
dominoes,  casts  grim  official  glances  at  his  tor- 


344  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

mentors  as  though  he  would  very  much  like  to  be 
Cato  the  Censor  of  men  as  well  as  words,  and  stamp 
out  a  few  of  the  Heydians  for  their  insolence. 

A  remarkable  and  very  puzzling  peculiarity  in  this 
absurd  and  useless  system  of  censorship,  is  the  fact 
that  paragraphs  positively  rampant  in  their  demo- 
cratic and  throne-subversive  tendency  are  very  fre- 
quently left  untouched,  and  are  visible  to  the  naked 
eye.  Whether  this  occurs  through  mere  careless- 
ness and  oversight  on  the  fat  man's  part,  or  through 
some  deep  and  subtle  design  of  the  fat  man's  supe- 
riors to  let  certain  things  be  known,  while  others  are 
to  be  enveloped  in  obscurity,  I  am  perfectly  unable 
to  state ;  but  such  is  the  fact.  Just  before  I  left 
Russia  the  affairs  of  Naples  were  beginning  to  at- 
tract attention.  The  probability  of  a  rupture  be- 
tween the  Western  powers  and  the  "  Padrone  asso- 
luto"  of  the  Lazzaroni  was  being  freely  discussed. 
The  papers  talked  of  the  imminent  arrival  of  an 
allied  squadron  in  the  Neapolitan  waters ;  of  the 
wrongs  of  Poerio ;  of  the  ripeness  of  the  people  for 
revolt;  of  the  atrocities  of  the  wretched  Ferdinand, 
and  his  sobriquet  of  "  King  Bomba ; "  of  the  bar- 
barities of  the  bastinade  and  the  dungeons  of  Cas- 
erta  and  Ischia.  All  this  was  left  untouched.  I 
think,  myself,  that  the  Russian  Government,  in  its 
dealings  with  newspapers,  is  much  more  afraid  of 
ideas  than  of  facts.  It  assumes  it  to  be  impossible 
for  its  reading  subjects  to  be  ignorant  of  the  moon's 
rotation ;  but  it  does  not  wish  them  to  know  why  it 
rotates,  or,  at  least,  to  speculate  on  this  or  any  other 
subject.  Speculation  might  lead  to  inquiries  as  to 


HIGH  JINKS  AT   CHRISTOFFSKY.  345 

the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  the  Stick,  the  Police, 
Slavery,  the  Passport  system,  non-representation,  an 
irresponsible  government — nay,  ultimately,  to  imper- 
tinent queries  as  to  the  cause  and  effect  of  the  high 
and  mighty  and  omnipotent  Czar  himself. 


XVI. 

HIGH  JINKS   AT   CHRISTOFFSKY. 

PERHAPS  Xhristovskoi — perhaps  Cristofski;  but, 
that  it  is  an  island  in  the  Neva,  and  that  there  are 
high  jinks  there,  I  know.  When  the  lexicological 
and  harmonic  value  of  the  thirty-six  letters  in  the 
Russian  alphabet  shall  find  a  compensating  equiva- 
lent, and  shall  be  adequately  represented  by  the  pov- 
erty stricken  twenty-six  we  Western  barbarians  pos- 
sess, I  shall  be  able,  I  hope,  to  get  on  better  with 
my  Sclavonic  orthography;  and  philologists  will 
cease  to  gird  at  me  for  not  spelling  correctly  words 
for  which  there  is  no  definite  rule  correctly  to  spell 
— will  cease  to  denounce  me  for  violating  the  law, 
when  that  law  is  yet  a  Lex  non  scripta. 

This  is  the  twenty-first  of  June — old,  or  Russian 
style ;  and  Saint  John's  Day — Midsummer,  in  fact. 
Even  as  the  little  boys  in  England  have  by  this  time 
come  home  for  the  holidays ;  so  have  the  big  and 
little  boys  who  wear  the  spiked  helmets,  and  swords, 
and  cocked  hats,  before  their  time  in  St.  Petersburg, 
15* 


346  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

come  home  for  their  Midsummer  holidays.  From 
the  first,  and  second,  and  third  cadet  corps ;  from 
the  school  of  imperial  pages,  and  the  corps  des 
Porte-Enseignes  de  la  Garde;  from  the  School  of 
Mines,  and  the  School  of  Forests,  and  the  School 
of  Roads  and  Bridges,  and  the  School  of  Artillery, 
and  the  School  of  Fireworks  and  Blue  Blazes, 
(which  last  educational  establishment  I  have  been 
led  impatiently  to  surmise,  so  numerous  are  the 
military  schools  in  Russia,)  from  all  these  gymnasia, 
teeming  with  future  heroes  burning  to  be  thrashed 
at  future  Inkermanns,  have  come  the  keen-eyed, 
multi-faced,  multi-langued  (which  is  heraldic,  though 
scarcely  Johnsonian,  as  an  epithet)  Russians.  I 
have  scratched  the  Russ  thoroughly  to-night,  and 
have  found  an  immense  quantity  of  Tartar  beneath 
his  epidermis.  Alexis  Hardshellovitch  is  here,  home 
for  the  holidays,  his  head  bigger  than  ever,  and  as 
few  brains  as  ever  inside  it.  Genghis  Khan  is 
here,  with  his  white-kid  gloves,  his  Parisian  accent, 
and  his  confounded  mare's  milk  and  black  sheepskin 
tent  countenance.  There  is,  to  be  brief,  a  mob  of 
lads  in  uniform  to  tea  this  Midsummer  night ;  the 
antechamber  is  full  of  helmets  and  cocked-hats,  un- 
dress caps  and  swords,  belts  and  sashes,  and  marine 
cadets'  dirks ;  while  the  outer  atrium  or  vestibule  is 
a  perfect  grove  of  cloaks  with  red  collars,  and  gray 
capotes  with  double-eagle  buttons. 

For,  the  kindest  lady  in  the  world  is  samovarising, 
otherwise,  entertaining  us  at  tea  to-night  in  her 
mansion  in  the  Mala  Millionnai'a — otherwise  La  pe- 
tite Millionne — why  million,  why  little — for  it  is  a 


HIGH  JINKS   AT   CHRISTOFFSKY.  347 

much  broader  street  than  Portland  Place — I  know 
not.  The  windows  are  all  open ;  and  as  there  are  a 
good  many  apartments  en  suite,  and  a  good  many 
windows  to  each,  no  man  has  as  yet  been  suffo- 
cated ;  though  the  heat  of  the  day  last  past  was 
full  of  promise  that  the  desirable  asphyxiating  con- 
summation in  question  would  occur  somewhere  or 
to  somebody  before  midnight.  We  have  made  a 
famous  tea ;  and  one  marine  cadet  has  consumed, 
to  my  knowledge,  twelve  tumblers-full  of  that  cheer- 
ing, but  not  inebriating  beverage.  Alexis  Hardshel- 
lovitch  has  overeaten  himself  as  usual,  on  raspber- 
ries and  cream,*  and  a  professor  of  natural  history 
in  the  University  of  Moscow — a  tremendous  savant, 
but  strangely  hail  fellow  well  met  with  these  school 
lads — has  been  cutting  thin  bread  and  butter  since 
ten  P.  M.  The  samovar  has  grown  so  hot  that  it 
scorches  those  who  approach  it,  and  blights  them 
like  an  upas  tree ;  so  the  guests  give  it  a  wide  berth, 
and  form  a  circle  round  it ;  though  the  heroic  lady 

*  The  Russian  raspberries  are  delicious,  full-sized,  juicy,  and 
luscious,  and  devoid  of  that  curious  furry  dryness,  that  to  me 
make  western  raspberries  as  deceptive  and  annoying  to  the  pal- 
ate as  the  apples  of  the  Dead  Sea.  In  England,  a  raspberry,  to 
my  mind,  is  only  to  be  tolerated — like  the  midshipman,  who  was 
hated  by  the  purser — in  a  pie ;  but  in  Russia  it  is  a  bulb  of  thirst- 
allaying  delight.  The  Russian  strawberries,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  execrable — little  niminy-piminy,  shrunken,  weazened  atomies, 
like  Number-six  shot  run  to  seed,  and  blushing  at  their  own  de- 
crepitude. I  have  seen  hot-house  strawberries,  not  in  the  fruit- 
markets,  but  in  the  great  Dutch  fruiterers'  shops  in  the  Nevskoi. 
Three  roubles,  sixteen  shillings,  was  the  moderate  price  asked  for 
a  basket  containing  half-a-dozen  moderately-sized  strawberries. 


348  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

of  the  house  still  continues  to  do  battle  with  it,  at 
arm's  length,  and  keeps  up  filling  tumblers  of  tea 
and  slicing  lemons  thereinto,  regardless  of  trouble 
or  expense.  There  are  so  many  guests,  and  they 
are  distributed  in  such  an  eccentric  manner,  that  the 
two  servants  in  waiting  have  long  since  abandoned 
— as  a  thing  impossible  of  accomplishment — the 
practice  of  handing  each  visitor  his  own  particular 
cup  of  tea.  They  come  round  with  the  tray  and 
the  tumblers ;  and  the  noble  Russians  make  Cos- 
sack forays  upon  them.  It  is  every  man  for  himself, 
and  tea  for  us  all. 

Start  not,  reader,  nor,  deeming  our  spirits  fled, 
think  that  we  are  all  men-folk  in  the  suite  of  apart- 
ments in  the  Mala  Millionna'ia,  samovarizing  on  the 
bounty  of  the  kindest  lady  in  the  world.  Besides 
that  good  soul,  who  has  lived  for  others  all  the  days 
of  her  life,  and  shall  assuredly  continue  to  live  for 
others  when  this  turbid  phantasm  is  over — but  those 
others  shall  be  angels  for  whom  she  shall  live  to  be 
loved  by  them,  and  who  will  keep  time  to  her  cloud- 
pressing  footsteps  with  harps  of  gold — besides  the 
good  woman,  we  are  sanctified,  this  Midsummer 
night,  by  the  presence  of  wise,  and  good,  and  beau- 
tiful women.  We  have  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  radi- 
ant in  the  majesty  of  her  haughty  comeliness,  proud, 
defiant,  outwardly,  but,  ah !  so  tender,  so  loving 
within — a  warrior's  cuirass  filled  with  custard  (this 
is  the  same  Queen  of  Sheba  you  heard  about  in 
connection  with  the  Nevskoi  perspective,  a  late  in- 
terview, and  a  certain  gent  in  a  white-top  coat)  ;  we 
have  this  fair  woman,  to  whom  Minerva  stood  god- 


HIGH  JINKS   AT   CHRISTOFFSKY.  349 

mother,  but  whom  Venus  stole  away  in  her  infancy, 
like  a  gipsy  as  she  is,  to  adopt  her,  practising  the 
trill  at  an  Erard's  grand  pianoforte,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  famous  St.  Peterburgian  Italian  music- 
master  Fripanelli  (this  is  not  the  etiolated  old  Frip- 
anelli  you  wot  of  in  Tattyboy's  Rents,  but  his 
prosperous  brother  Benedetto  Fripanelli,  who  emi- 
grated from  the  Lombardo-Veneto  kingdom  soon 
after  some  Carbonari  troubles  in  eighteen  hundred 
and  twenty-two — ostensibly  because  he  was  politi- 
cally compromised,  actually  because  he  could  not 
gain  bread,  olives,  or  rosolio — nay,  not  in  Milan — 
nay,  not  in  Bergamo — nay,  not  in  Venice ;  and 
makes  his  six  thousand  roubles  per  annum  in  Pe- 
tersburg now  by  persuading  princesses  that  they  can 
sing.) 

The  Principle  of  Evil,  if  we  are  to  believe  the 
old  legends,  suffers,  among  other  deprivations,  under 
the  curse  of  banishment  from  HARMONY.  The  devil 
has  no  ear.  He  cannot  sing  second.  Counterpoint 
is  a  dead  letter  to  him.  Base  as  he  may  be,  thor- 
ough bass  is  a  sealed  book  to  him.  He  is  never 
more  to  hear  the  music  of  the  spheres.  Goethe  has 
wonderfuUy  implied  this  in  the  discordant  jangling 
of  the  sound  of  Mephistopheles'  speeches.  After 
the  Spirit  of  Negation  has  spoken  one  of  his  devil- 
ish diatribes,  the  accents  of  Faust  fall  upon  the  ear 
like  honey.  Humanum  est  errare  in  the  case  of 
Faust ;  but  the  devil  cannot  err,  because  he  cannot, 
in  any  case,  be  right.  He  who  commences  nothing, 
cannot  be  tardy  in  finishing  his  work.  It  seems  a 
certain  curse  upon  the  Russian  aristocracy  that  they, 


350  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

too,  have  no  ear.  They  cannot  sing  in  tune ;  the 
only  melody  they  are  capable  of  accomplishing  is 
the  tune  the  cow  died  of.  I  happened  to  mix  much, 
while  in  Russia,  in  musical  and  operatic  circles — 
of  which,  specially,  I  shall  have  to  say  something  in 
the  course  of  this  wayward  journey.  The  Russian 
ladies  insist  upon  learning  the  most  difficult  mor- 
ceaux  from  the  most  difficult  operas.  Where  an 
angel  would  fear  to  tread  in  the  regions  of  Wapping 
Old  Stairs,  the  Princess  Piccoliminikoff  will  rush  in 
with  Casta  Diva.  They  (the  ladies)  are  admirable, 
nay,  scientific  musicians.  They  are  wonderful  pian- 
istes — but  always  in  a  hard,  ringy,  metallic  manner, 
without  one  particle  of  soul ;  they  are  marvellous 
executantes  vocally,  and  can  do  as  much,  perhaps, 
in  the  way  of  roulades  and  fioriture,  as  the  most  un- 
approachable Italian  singer ;  but  sing  in  time,  or 
tune  (especially,)  they  cannot.  "  Tout  $a  chante 
faux."  ("  They  all  sing  false,")  a  music-master  told 
me  at  Count  Strogonoff 's,  pointing  to  the  whole  co- 
hort of  musical  ladies  gathered  round  a  pianoforte. 
On  the  other  hand  the  brutish,  enslaved,  unmusic- 
mastered  people  are  essentially  melodious.  I  have 
heard  in  villages  Russian  airs  sung  to  the  strumming 
of  the  Balalaika,  or  Russian  lute,  with  a  purity  of 
intonation  and  truth  of  expression,  that  would  make 
many  of  our  most  admired  ballad-singers  blush. 

To  the  Queen  of  Sheba  is  joined  a  timid  little 
fluttering  fawn  of  a  thing — one  Mademoiselle  Na- 
diejda.  Nadiejda  what?  Well,  I  will  say  Dash. 
Mademoiselle  Dash  (the  Christian  name  is  a  pretty 
and  tender  one,  and  signifies,  in  the  English  Ian- 


HIGH  JINKS   AT   CIIRISTOFFSKY.  351 

guage  Hope  (is  one,  well,  not  of  those  rarce  aves, 
but  certainly  of  those  pearls  beyond  price,  Russian 
pretty  girls.  She  is  not  beautiful ;  the  Russian  beau- 
ties are  either  of  Circassian,  Georgian,  or  Mingre- 
lian  origin — dark-eyed,  dark  skinned,  full  bee-stung 
lipped,  and  generally  Houri-looking ;  or  they  are  the 
rounded  German-Frauleins — from  Esthonia,  Livo- 
nia, and  Courland  :  North  German  beauties,  in  fact, 
and  you  must  have  travelled  with  me,  unavailingly, 
all  this  way  Due  North,  if  you  do  not  know,  by  this 
time,  what  a  handsome  young  German  lady  is  like. 
Nadiejda  is  a  pretty  girl — a  white  one.  She  was  not 
printed  in  fast  colours,  and  has  been  washed  out. 
Do  you  know  what  simply  colourless  hair  is  ? — she 
has  it.  Do  you  know  the  eye,  that  although  you 
may  be  as  innocent  as  the  babe  unborn,  looks  upon 
you  mournfully,  reproachfully,  till  you  begin  to  have 
an  uneasy  fancy  of  the  possibility  of  the  metemp- 
sychosis, and  wonder  whether  you  ever  saw  that 
eye  before — thousands'  of  years  since — or  did  its 
possessor  some  grievous  wrong  ?  Nadiejda's  lips  are 
not  red — the  colour  seems  all  kissed  out  of  them. 
Her  cheeks  are  deadly  pale,  as  though  she  were  so 
timid  that  she  had  blushed,  and  blushed  till  she 
could  blush  no  more,  and  so  turned  to  Parian 
marble. 

Then  we  have  some  ladies  who  certainly  might 
be  a  little  younger  than  they  look  (the  atrocious 
climate,  fatal  to  every  complexion,  being  considered,) 
but  who  are  decidedly  much  older  than  they  wish  to 
look.  Then  we  have  some  old  ladies  (very  few — old 
ladies  are  not  plentiful  in  St.  Petersburg ;  if  you  wish 


852  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

to  see  venerable  age  you  must  go  into  the  provinces,) 
and  we  have  a  few  little  girls  of  the  bread-and-butter- 
eating  school-girl  genus,  who  sit  silent  and  demure 
in  corners,  and  only  speak  when  they  are  spoken  to : 
which  is  very  seldom  indeed. 

I  have  had  occasion,  speaking  of  the  "  Baba  "  in 
the  pictures  of  Russian  village  life,  to  remark  upon 
the  general  hideousness  of  the  purely  Russian  peas- 
ant woman.  A  girl  of  "  sweet  sixteen  "  is  a  loutish 
wench,  a  woman  of  thirty  is  a  horrible  harridan. 
The  only  comely  exception  is  to  be  found  in  villages 
partially  femini-colonized  by  Turkish  women.  In 
the  Russo-Turkish  campaign  of  eighteen  hundred 
and  twenty-nine,  very  large  numbers  of  Turkish 
ladies  became,  on  a  truly  Sabine  or  nolens-volens 
willy-nilly  principle,  the  spouses  of  Russian  soldiers  ; 
they  were  brought  to  the  native  villages  of  their  im- 
promptu husbands,  and  there  reared  progeny,  which, 
in  the  female  line  at  least,  reminds  the  traveller 
of  the  agreeable  fable  of  Mahomet's  Paradise.  It 
is  not  very  conclusive  evidence  in  favour  of  the  in- 
nate fanaticism  of  the  followers  of  Islam,  that  these 
Turkish  women  consented  with  scarcely  an  excep- 
tion to  be  baptized,  and  received  into  the  Greek 
church,  and  subsequently  cheerfully  performed  all 
the  religious  duties  required  by  that  exigent  com- 
munion. 

Grown-up  young  ladies,  with  no  doughtier  cava- 
liers than  cadets  and  imperial  pages — beardless, 
albeit  brave,  in  spiked  helmets  and  gold  lace — would 
form  but  an  insipid  and  juvenile-party-sort-of  gath- 
ering round  the  social  samovar  ;  but  the  fact  is,  that 


HIGH  JINKS   AT   CHKTSTOFFSKY.  353 

the  great  majority  of  the  boys  in  uniform  have  brought 
their  big  brothers  with  them,  who  now,  in  all  the 
glories  of  their  hussar,  and  cuirassier,  and  Cossack 
of  the  Guard  uniforms,  lounge  upon  ottomans  and 
hang  over  pianofortes,  and  peg  at  the  polished  floor- 
ing with  their  spurs,  and  twirl  their  moustaches,  and 
pervade  the  salons  of  the  kindest  lady  in  the  world 
with  a  guard-room  and  mess-room  flavour,  generally. 
The  bond  of  union  between  all  these  dissimilar  ele- 
ments— ladies,  schoolboys,  and  dragoons — is  the 
gentle  Turki-krepi-Tabak,  or  Turkish  tobacco,  which, 
rolled  into  little  paper  cigarettes  (called, papiros)  by 
the  fair  hands  of  ladies,  is  being  complacently  ex- 
haled by  nearly  every  one  present.  The  little  school- 
girls, it  is  true,  refrained  from  the  weed  ;  but  the  of- 
ficers and  cadets,  and — I  blush  to  write  it — the  ma- 
jority of  the  grown-up  young  ladies — yea  even  the 
Queen  of  Sheba — are  all  puffing  away,  consistently 
and  complacently,  at  their  papiros.  As  to  the  old 
ladies,  there  is  no  exaggeration  in  saying  they  are 
smoking  like  lime-kilns  ;  and  tobacco-ash  is  abund- 
ant on  the  furniture,  and  the  floor,  and  the  keys  of 
the  pianoforte.  I  am  not  great  at  the  papiros  my- 
self, ordinarily  regarding  it  as  a  weak  figment — a 
tiny  kickshaw  or  side-dish,  unworthy  the  attention 
of  a  steady  and  serious  smoker,  and  am,  besides, 
afraid  that  I  shall  some  day  swallow  the  flimsy  roll 
by  a  too  vigorous  inhalation.  For  this  reason  per- 
haps it  is,  or  maybe  because  I  am  naturally  modest, 
not  to  say  awkward,  clumsy,  and  born  with  two  left 
hands  and  two  left  feet,  I  do  not  mingle  much  with 
the  gay  throng,  but  retire  within  myself  and  a  pow- 


354  'A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

erful  Havana  cigar  behind  the  window-curtain.  I 
miss  nothing,  however,  either  of  the  conversation  or 
of  the  music ;  I  have  rny  full  and  proper  allowance 
of  tumblers  of  tea ;  nay,  the  kindest  lady  in  the 
world  is  good  enough,  from  time  to  time,  to  convey 
me  almond  cakes  in  the  smoky  seclusion  I  have 
chosen  for  myself. 

We  go  on  chatting,  pianoforte-tinkling,  French 
romance-telling,  smoking,  and  samovarizing,  till  past 
one  in  the  morning.  There  is  an  apology  for  illumi- 
nation in  the  shape  of  a  moderator  lamp  on  a  gued- 
iron  in  one  corner;  but  nobody  minds  it:  nobody 
has  need  of  it.  The  night-daylight  in  the  sky  is 
quite  sufficient  for  us  to  smoke  and  chat — and  shall 
I  say  it  ? — make  love  by. 

It  is  quite  time  I  think  that  I  should  explain  to 
you  why  there  should  be  high  jinks  at  Christoffsky 
to  night  (the  height  of  those  jinks,  is  the  cause  of 
our  samovarizing,  this  twenty-first  of  June,  so  late 
or  early,)  where  Christoffsky  itself  is,  and  what  the 
jinks  I  have  entitled  high  are  like. 

Christoffsky  is  one  of  the  many  beautiful  islands 
that  jewel  the  bosom  of  the  Neva;  and  £very 
year,  on  the  Eve  of  St.  John,  the  whole  German 
population  of  St.  Petersburg,  rich  and  poor,  men, 
women,  and  children,  emigrate  in  steamers  and  gon- 
dolas, and  cockboats  to  Christoffsky,  and  there  picnic, 
or  bivouac,  for  three  days  and  nights.  They  snatch 
odd  instalments  of  forty  winks  during  this  time,  but 
the  vast  majority  of  it  is  devoted  to  the  congenial 
task  of  "  keeping  it  up,"  and  this  they  do  with  a 
vigour  of  conviviality  approaching  the  ferocious. 


HIGH  JINKS   AT   CHRISTOFfrSKY.  355 

To  tell  the  honest  truth,  the  German  bivouac  at 
Christoffsky  is  an  unmitigated  saturnalia,  and  my 
pen  will  require  a  great  amount  of  reining  up  and 
toning  down  while  I  attempt  to  describe  its  Teutonic 
eccentricities. 

The  noble  Russians,  who  despise  the  German  na- 
tion and  hate  the  German  language,  (whose  acquire- 
ment to  perfect  fluency  is  compulsory  to  all  candi- 
dates for  military  service,  even  to  Nous  Autres,)  and 
loathe  the  Russo-German  nobility,  condescend  on 
this  twenty-first  of  June  to  cross  in  gondolas  to 
Christoffsky,  and  there  to  watch  the  bacchanalian 
orgies  of  the  Germans,  with  the  same  sort  of  sneer- 
ing contempt  that  might  have  moved  an  educated 
Lacedemonian  of  the  old  time  at  the  sight  of  a 
drunken  Helot ;  but  with  the  same  half-pleased,  half- 
scornful  interest  that  flickers  on  Mephistopheles'  vis- 
age when  he  sees  the  piggish  revelries  of  the  stu- 
dents in  Auerbach's  cellar. 

We  have  made  up  a  party  (of  gentlemen,  be  it 
understood)  to  go  see  the  high  jinks  at  Christoffsky ; 
we  are  about  eight  for  one  gondola  load;  among 
then*  there  are  but  two  civilians  :  myself — if  a  mem- 
ber of  the  press  militant  can  be  called  a  civilian 
— and  a  distinguished  young  and  closely-shaven 
Tchinovnik,  who  has  a  startling  resemblance  to  the 
mind-picture  I  had  formed  of  what  Ignatius  Loyola, 
formerly  a  soldier,  and  afterwards  a  Jesuit,  was  like 
in  his  youth.  This  Tchinovnik — I  will  call  him 
Fedor  Escobarovitch — though  barely  twenty-three, 
is  high  up  in  the  department  of  foreign  affairs  ;  in 
the  secret  department,  where  the  archives  are,  and 


356  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  pretty  little  notes  are  concocted,  and  the  fat  is 
extracted  from  the  otherwise  dry  bones  of  diplo- 
macy, which  afterwards  falls  into  the  political  fire, 
and  sets  all  Europe  in  a  blaze. 

We  bid  the  ladies  good  night,  and  setting  forth, 
well  wrapped  up  in  coats  and  capotes,  you  may  be 
sure,  gain  the  Troitza-most,  or  Great  Timber  Bridge 
of  the  Trinity.  I  ought  to  have  mentioned  that 
cadets  have  been  rigorously — with  but  one  excep- 
tion— excluded  from  our  party,  on  the  motion  of  an 
exceedingly  impertinent  cornet  of  light  cavalry,  with 
a  cherry-coloured  cap,  a  braided  surtout — like  that 
of  M.  Perrot  in  the  Varsoviana — a  very  sunburnt 
face  and  a  very  white  forehead  (he  has  been  down 
to  his  terres  or  estates  lately.)  This  young  Tartar, 
who  has  not  possessed  a  commission  three  months 
yet,  says  that  it  will  compromise  his  uniform  to  be 
seen,  publicly,  in  company  with  a  cadet.  To  samo- 
varize,  or  play  cards  with  him — bon  !  but  to  be  seen 
with  him  in  a  gondola,  or  at  the  High  Christoffian 
Jinks — that  would  never  do.  The  exception  at  last 
in  favour  of  a  very  mild,  inoifensive,  blue-eyed  pupil 
of  the  engineer  corps  is  made ;  ostensibly  on  the 
ground  of  the  cherry-coloured  cornet  waiving  his 
objections  on  the  score  of  not  wishing  to  disturb 
the  harmony  of  the  evening — which  was  the  morn- 
ing of  the  next  day.  Nobody  makes  any  objection 
to  me,  though  I  am  in  plain  black,  am  not  a  Tchi- 
novnik — nay,  not  even  a  cadet  in  the  engineer  corps ; 
but  I  am  simply  an  Angliski  who  can  talk  and 
smoke  with,  and  be  asked  questions  by  them.  So 
we  go  away  gayly  in  a  gondola,  (for  which  we  have 


HIGH  JINKS  AT  CHRISTOFFSKY.  357 

to  pay  an  enormous  fare,)  and  in  due  time  land  at 
Christoffsky,  I  sitting  among  these  jovial  young 
nobles,  as  Gubetta  sat  among  the  Orsinis  and  Ga- 
zellas  in  the  pi  ay — they  little  wotting  that  Donna 
Lucrezia  Borgia  was  waiting  for  me,  in  the  shape 
of  a  printing-press  at  home.  They  would  have 
thrown  me  out  of  the  boat  had  they  known  that,  I 
think. 

The  high  jinks  fully  answer  our  expectations : 
they  are  exceedingly  high.  The  immense  expanse 
of  green  sward  is  covered  with  an  encampment  of 
gipsy-like  tents — some  white,  some  black,  some  red, 
some  striped  in  white  and  blue.  There  are  other 
tents,  or  rather  wigwams,  constructed  of  branches 
covered  in  with  green  leaves,  beneath  whose  verdant 
covering  some  fat  German  children  in  the  wood  are 
smoking  and  drinking  and  snoring.  There  are 
some  more  fortunate  members  of  the  class  the 
Russians  so  contemptuously  designate  as  "  Ganz 
Deutsch,"  who  display  a  degree  of  luxury  almost 
amounting  to  ostentation  in  the  temporary  edifices 
they  have  erected  to  have  their  orgies  and  their 
Midsummer  madness  in.  These  are  quite  pavilions, 
the  canvas  of  gay  colours,  looped  and  fringed,  and 
banners  waving  from  the  apex  of  the  conical  roof. 
There  are  many  simple  bivouacs,  belonging  probably 
to  artizans  too  poor  to  have  tents,  and  who  squat 
in  a  circle — always  smoking,  drinking,  and  occa- 
sionally howling,  round  a  tremendous  bonfire  of 
green  wood,  which  crackles  and  blazes  and  fumes 
in  approved  gipsy  fashion.  But,  in  place  of  the 
time-honoured  pot  containing  the  surreptitiously- 


358  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

obtained  supper  of  the  Zingari — the  stolen  fowls, 
the  purloined  turkeys,  the  snared  pheasants,  and  the 
ill-gotten  rabbits,  with  other  dishonestly-annexed  ad- 
denda in  the  way  of  vegetables,  which  go  towards 
furnishing  forth  the  hot  supper  of  a  British  Bohe- 
mian,— instead  of  the  pot,  suspended  by  a  triangle 
and  a  hook  over  the  blaze,  we  have  here  in  every 
case  the  samovar :  big,  brazen,  and  battered.  As 
to  its  serving  for  purposes  of  tea-making  at  this 
German  carousal,  I  strenuously  and  determinedly 
disbelieve  it.  It  is  punch,  sir — hot  punch — punch, 
made  not  of  cognac,  made  not  of  Jamaica  rum  or 
Irish  whiskey — though  both  are  to  be  obtained  (at 
an  enormous  price)  in  Russia — made  not  even  from 
the  native  Vodki ;  but,  brewed  from  the  hot,  potent, 
dark-coloured  Brantwein  of  Deutschland  the  be- 
loved ;  especially  imported,  or  smuggled,  through 
the  custom-house,  which  comes  in  the  main  to  the 
same  thing,  for  the  festivities,  otherwise  high  jinks, 
of  Christoffsky. 

To  give  you  a  notion  of  the  crowds  of  persons  of 
both  sexes,  of  all  ages,  and'  apparently  of  all  condi- 
tions, who  are  sprawling  or  tumbling,  or  leaping  or 
dancing  about  this  "  green  isle,"  would  be  difficult, 
if  not  impossible.  To  give  you  a  notion  of  the 
great  circles,  formed,  I  thought  at  first,  for  kiss-in- 
the-ring,  but,  I  soon  discovered,  for  waltzes  and 
quadrilles  ;  of  the  debauched  Germans  lying  about 
dead  drunk,  or  rushing  about  mad  drunk  ;  of  hunch- 
backs, with  bottles  of  liquor,  capering  up  to  you, 
with  strange  mouthings  and  writhings  ;  of  the  roar- 
ing choruses,  the  discordant  music,  the  Punch's 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).   359 

shows — Punch's  shows  in  Russia! — the  acrobats, 
the  dancing  dogs  and  monkeys,  the  conjurers,  the 
gambling  tables,  the  Russian  moujiks,  not  mingling 
among  the  revellers  to  revel  with  them,  but  to  sell 
quass,  tea,  meat  pies,  hard  eggs,  and  salted  cucum- 
bers ;  to  see  all  this,  made  you  dizzy,  almost  drunk. 
And  the  swings,  and  the  round-abouts,  and  the 
gray-coated  Polizeis,  ever  watchful,  ever  ruthless, 
making  savage  forays  on  the  revellers,  and  convey- 
ing them  to  prison,  there  to  learn  that  their  even- 
ing's amusement  would  not  bear  the  morning's 
reflection. 

We  did  not  return  from  Christoffsky  by  water, 
but  on  several  droschkies — there  is  a  bridge  uniting 
the  scene  of  the  high  jinks  to  Wassaily  Ostrow — 
and  for  which  droschkies,  in  their  severality,  we  had 
to  pay  several  roubles.  Going  to  bed  at  about  six 
o'clock,  very  tired  and  worn  out,  I  fell  into  a  weary 
sleep,  and  dreamt  that  I  had  been  to  Greenwich 
Fair  at  night,  having  been  at  the  Derby  all  day,  and 
having  seen  the  masque  of  Comus  the  night  before. 
Which  is  about  the  best  notion  I  can  give  of  the 
high  jinks  at  Christoffsky. 


XVII. 

THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE). 

DROSCHKYING  one  day  along  the  Gorokhova'fa,  or 
Street  of  the  Peas,  there  passed  me,  darting  in  and 


360  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

out  of  the  usual  mounted  escort  of  dust,  one  of  the 
neatest  turn-outs  in  tfie  way  of  a  private  droschky 
that  I  had  seen  since  my  arrival  in  St.  Petersburg. 
The  horse  was  a  magnificent  Alezan,  worth  from 
eight  hundred  to  a  thousand  roubles  probably — an 
arch-necked,  small,  proud,  wicked-headed  brute. 
The  Ischvostchik  was  a  picture — stalwart,  well- 
proportioned,  full-bearded,  and  white-teethed ;  his 
caftan  well-fitting,  his  sash  resplendent,  his  neck- 
cloth so  snowy  in  its  hue,  so  irreproachable  in  its 
uncreasiness,  that  it  might  have  shone  to  advantage 
at  a  Sunday-school  revival — nay,  might  have  been 
thought  not  unworthy  to  gleam  with  a  sanctified 
shimmer  on  the  platform  of  Exeter  Hall  the  Great, 
itself.  He  held  his  reins  delicately,  and  dallied  with 
them  digitally,  more  as  though  he  were  playing  on 
the  harpsichord  than  guiding  a  vicious  horse.  Be- 
hind this  grand-ducal-droschky-looking  charioteer, 
there  sat  a  stout  man  with  a  stouter,  flabbier,  and 
very  pale  and  unwholesome-looking  visage.  It  was 
the  reverse  of  good  to  see  those  pendant  cheeks  of 
his,  gelatinizing  over  the  choking  collar  of  his  uni- 
form. Moreover,  he  wore  gold-rimmed  spectacles ; 
moreover,  his  shiny  black  hair  was  cropped  close  to 
his  head,  much  more  in  a  recently-discharged  Eng- 
lish ticket-of-leave  than  in  a  Russian  and  military 
fashion ;  mostover,  he  had  not  a  vestige  of  mous- 
tache about  him ;  and  this  last  circumstance,  com- 
bined with  a  tiny  equilateral  triangle  of  turn-down 
collar  that  asserted  itself  over  each  side  of  his  stock 
below  where  his  cheeks  were  wagging,  puzzled  me 
mightily,  mingling  as  both  together  did  a  dash  of 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  E 

the  civil  with  the  military  element  in  him.  For,  a? 
to  the  rest  of  his  attire  he  was  all  martial — coat 
buttoned  up  to  here,  spiked  and  doubled-eagled 
helmet,  gray  capote,  buckskin  gloves,  and  patent- 
leather  boots.  Could  this  be  the  Czar  himself?  I 
asked  myself.  I  had  heard  of  the  studiously  unos- 
tentatious manner  in  which  the  autocrat  perambu- 
lates the  streets  of  his  capital ;  but  then  I  know 
also,  from  the  columns  of  that  morning's  Journal  de 
St.  Petersbourg,  that  the  Gossudar  was  at  Revel, 
indulging  in  the  innocent  delights  of  sea-bathing 
with  his  wife  and  family.  Who  could  this  be — the 
governor  of  St.  Petersburg  ?  Count  Nesselrode  ? 
Say. 

Let  me  here  remark  that  the  Russians,  who  are 
the  cutest  sophists,  if  not  the  closest  reasoners,  to  be 
found  in  a  long  life's  march,  frequently  allude  with 
exulting  complacency  to  the  quiet,  modest,  and  on- 
his-people-confiding  manner  in  which  the  emperor 
goes  about.  "  We  have  no  walking  on  jealously- 
guarded  slopes  in  Russia,"  they  say ;  "  our  emperor 
takes  his  morning  walk  from  nine  to  ten  on  the 
Quay  de  la  Cour,  in  front  of  the  Winter  Palace, 
where  the  poorest  moujik  or  gondola  boatman  can 
salute  him.  We  have  no  barouches-and-four,  no 
glass  coaches  with  cuirassiers  riding  with  cocked 
pistols  at  the  windows,  or  escorts  of  Cent  Gardes, 
or  hussars,  or  lancers  following  behind.  '  We  have 
not  even  outriders  or  equerries — nay,  not  a  single 
footman  nor  groorn.  The  Czar  is  driven  about  in  a 
one-horse  chay,  an  Ischvostchik  to  drive  him,  just  as 

you  may  have  one,  only  a  little  dirtier,  for  your  five- 
16 


36^  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

and-twenty  copecks ;  and  that  is  all.  Our  Czar's 
escort  is  in  the  people  he  loves  so  well ;  his  greatest 
safeguard  is  in  their  unalterable  veneration  and 
affection  for  him."  Unto  such  Russians  I  have 
ordinarily  answered,  True,  O  king  !  but  what  needs 
your  master  with  an  escort  when  St.  Petersburg  is 
one  huge  barrack,  or  rather  one  huge  police  station  ? 
What  need  of  Cent  Gardes  when  there  are  thou- 
sands of  police  guards  walking  within  the  Czar's 
droschky -sight  on  the  Nevskoi  ?  What  need  has  a 
keeper  to  be  afraid  of  a  fierce  bear,  when  the  beast 
is  muzzled,  and  chained,  and  shackled  to  the  floor  of 
his  den,  and  barred  in  besides  ? 

I  had  with  me  on  this  occasion  a  companion  of 
the  Russian  ilk,  and  made  bold  to  ask  that  Musco- 
vite who  this  gray-capoted  unmoustachioed  appari- 
tion in  the  handsome  droschky  might  be.  I  must 
explain  that  I  was  very  young  to  Russia  at  this 
time — a  month's  longer  residence  would  have  made 
me  wondrously  uniform  wise  ;  for  being  necessarily 
and  constantly  in  contact  with  persons  wearing 
some  uniform  garb  or  other,  a  man  must  needs  grow 
learned  in  buttons,  and  facings,  and  coat-cuts,  and 
sword-hilts,  and  can  nose  a  guardsman  or  a  lines- 
man on  the  Nevskoi  by  what  is  nautically — and  per- 
haps naughtily — expressed  as  the  cut  of  his  jib,  as 
easily  as  Polonius  was  said  to  be  susceptible  of  nasal 
detection  by  the  Danish  gentleman  who  saw  the 
ghost,  and  used  bad  language  to  his  mother. 

The  Russian  to  whom  I  addressed  this  query 
responded,  first  by  the  usual  shrug,  next  by  the  usual 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  363 

smile,  and  lastly  by  the  inevitable  Russian  counter- 
query  : 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  don't  know  ?  " 

"  I  have  not  the  slightest  notion.  A  field-mar- 
shal ?  Prince  Gortschakoff  ?  General  Todleben  ?  " 

"  My  dear  fellow,  that  is  a  major  of  police." 

"  His  pay  must  be  something  enormous  then,  or 
his  private  fortune  must  be  very  handsome,"  I  ven- 
tured to  remark ;  "  he  being  able  to  drive  so  elegant 
an  equipage  as  the  one  we  have  just  seen." 

"  That  dog's  son,"  the  Russian  answered  leisurely, 
"  has  not  a  penny  of  his  own  in  the  world,  and  his 
full  pay  and  allowances  may  amount,  at  the  very 
outside,  to  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  roubles  a 
year,"  (forty  pounds.) 

"But  whence  the  private  droschky,  the  Alezan 
horse,  the  silver-mounted  harness,  the  luxury  of  the 
whole  turn-out  ?  "  I  asked. 

" H  prend"  (he  takes,)  the  Russian  answered  very 
coolly ;  whereupon,  as  by  this  time  we  had  arrived 
at  the  corner  of  the  Great  Moorskaia,  he  deigned  to 
descend  from  the  vehicle,  and,  leaving  me  to  pay  the 
Ischvostchik,  he  went  on  his  way,  and  I  saw  him  no 
more  till  dinner-time. 

Which  is  so  much  of  the  apologue  I  have  to  tell 
concerning  my  first  definite  notions  of  the  Russian 
police. 

The  Russian  Boguey,  like  the  police  system  of 
roost  despotic  countries,  is  divided  into  two  great 
sections — the  judicial  or  public,  and  the  political  or 
secret.  As  I  purpose  to  tell  all  I  know  anent  both 
these  peculiarly  infamous  bodies,  but  as  I  have  made 


364  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

a  vow  (among  a  great  many  vows,  one  of  a  charm- 
ingly Asdrubalic,  Hannibalic  nature,  which  has 
revenge  for  its  object)  against  digression,  I  will  be 
as  succinct  as  I  can,  and,  treating  of  the  judicial 
police  first,  take  you  at  once  to  the  nearest  police- 
station. 

This  is  called  a  SIEGE  or  Seat,  synonymous  with 
the  police  Presidium  of  German  towns.  The  head 
of  the  judicial  or  municipal  police  of  St.  Petersburg 
(under  the  great  Panjandrum  and  Archimandrite  of 
all  the  Russian  bobbies — the  chief  of  the  gendar- 
merie who  has  that  house  on  the  Fontanka)  is  called 
the  Grand  Master  of  Police.  He  has  his  acolytes, 
and  his  offices,  and  chancellerie,  and  attributions. 
He  is  Commissioner  Sir  Richard  Mayne,  in  fact, 
subject  to  the  beneficent  control  of  a  police  home 
secretary.  Under  this  Grand  Master,  the  capital  is 
divided  into  districts  and  arrondissements,  each  hav- 
ing a  central  station,  bureau,  barrack,  prison,  hos- 
pital, torture-yard,  fire-engine  house,  and  watch- 
tower.  The  amalgamated  entity  is  the  Siege. 

Take  a  Siege  and  place  it  in  one  of  the  score  of 
linies  that  run  in  grim  parallels  across  Wassily  Os- 
trow.* 

*  I  have  frequently  been  on  the  point  of  giving  way  to  a  pleo- 
nasm, and  speaking  of  the  island  of  Wassily  Ostrow — Ostrow, 
Ostrov,  or  Ostroff,  meaning  itself  an  island — which  would  render 
me  amenable  to  as  much  ridicule,  I  opine,  as  that  Parisian  cafe 
proprietor  who  advertised  in  his  window  that  Eau  de  Soda  Water 
was  always  to  be  had  on  the  premises.  As  regards  the  etymol- 
ogy of  Wassily  Ostrow  it  is  written  that  in  Peter  the  Great's 
time  it  was  but  a  swampy  islet  in  the  Neva  (it  is  now  nearly  en- 
tirely built  upon)  with  but  one  small  fort,  which  was  under  the 


THE   GREAT  RUSSIAN   BOGUEY   (THE   POLICE).     365 

You  have  a  vast  stone  packing-case — a  sepulchre 
of  justice  carefully  whited  without.  Above  the 
door  there  must  be  of  course  the  usual  lengthy  in- 
scription in  Russ  which  is  to  be  found  on  every  pub- 
lic building  in  Russia,  about  Heaven,  the  Czar,  and 
the  imperial  something  or  other.  Every  thing  is 
imperial  Due  North.  The  packing-case,  understand, 
is  not  the  whole  of  the  building.  It  might  be  said, 
with  more  justice  perhaps,  to  resemble  a  very  squat, 
unornamented  copy  of  the  New  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  for,  from  one  corner  rises  the  Victoria  Tower 
of  the  Siege,  in  the  shape  of  that  celebrated  watch- 
tower  you  have  already  heard  about — in  the  Nev- 
skoi',  close  to  the  Gostinnoi-dvor  and  the  town-hall, 
as  also  at  Volnoi-Volostchok.  The  watchtower 
may,  and  frequently  does  rise  to  the  height  of  one 
hundred  feet ;  this  one  appertaining  to  a  police  Siege 
that  has  been  but  recently  erected,  is  of  solid  stone. 
Wooden  buildings  of  every  description  are  common 
throughout  Russia ;  but,  it  is  an  inflexible  and 
laudable  principle  with  the  government  never  to 
allow  any  building  of  wood  in  a  town  once  de- 
government  of  one  Basil,  pronounced  by  the  Russians  Vacil. 
When  Peter,  from  his  wooden  house  in  the  Island  of  Petersburg, 
had  occasion  to  send  despatches  to  his  isolated  lieutenant,  he  was 
accustomed  to  address  his  letters  thus  : — "  Vacil  na  Ostrow  " — 
To  Vacil  at  the  island.  Contraction  and  ellipsis  soon  take  place ; 
and  no  man  wots  of  Governor  Basil  now.  Wassily  Ostrow  is 
full  of  houses :  the  Byrsa  or  Exchange,  the  Custom-house,  the 
School  of  Mines,  the  Academies  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  the  Great 
Cadet  School — all  these  magnificent  edifices  are  there  ;  and  the 
swampy  islet,  the  wooden  fort,  and  Peter  Velike's  lieutenant  are 
forgotten. 


366  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

stroyed  to  be  built  up  again  of  the  same  combustible 
material.  Stone  or  brick  must  be  the  only  wear,  or 
the  house  itself  never  rise  again  from  its  foundations. 
Within  the  balcony  on  the  summit  of  the  tower,  and 
round  about  the  iron  apparatus  of  rods  and  uprights 
on  which  the  different  coloured  balls  and  flags  de- 
noting the  phases  of  a  fire  are  displayed  [a  yellow 
flag  flies  during  the  whole  time  a  conflagration  is 
actually  raging],  walk  round  around,  in  moody  con- 
templation of  the  vast  marble  panorama  spread  out 
at  their  feet,  two  gray-coated  sentinels,  searching 
with  impassible  gaze  into  the  secrets  of  the  city,  and 
signalling  with  equal  indifference  a  fire  at  the  mon- 
strously magnificent  Winter  Palace,  or  a  fire  at  the 
log-built  cabin  of  some  miserable  lighterman  who 
dwells  in  the  slums  of  Petersburg  far  down  among 
the  ooze  below  the  arsenal  and  the  tallow  warehouse. 
What  matters  it  to  them  or  to  the  master  they  are 
compelled  to  serve — the  Sultan  Kebir — the  Czar  of 
Fire  ?  For,  is  not  fire  like  DEATH,  and  does  it  not 

....  sequo  pulsat  pede 
Pauperutn  tabernas,  regumque  turres  ? 

At  the  base  of  the  watchtower  there  stretches 
out,  in  a  line  with  the  packing-case,  a  long  stone 
wall,  with  a  door  painted  bright  green  in  the  centre ; 
when  that  door  is  open  you  may,  peeping  through 
U,  descry  the  yard  of  the  fire-engine  establishment, 
and  see,  ranged  under  sheds,  the  fire-engines  and 
water-carts.  The  former  are  clumsy-looking  ma- 
chines enough ;  the  latter  are  simply  barrels  upon 
wheels,  like  the  old  Parisian  water-carrier's  carts  ; 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  367 

but,  all  are  painted  bright  green  picked  out  with 
scarlet.  I  am  not  digressing  in  speaking  of  the 
Petersburgian  fire-brigade  while  my  topic  is  the 
Petersburgian  police,  for  the  fire-engines  and  the 
men  who  serve  them  are  under  the  immediate  con- 
trol of  Boguey.  The  Russian  fire-engineers  do  not 
appear  to  take  that  pride  and  pleasure  in  the  smart, 
trim,  dandified  appearance  of  their  engines,  hose, 
buckets,  fittings,  and  general  plant,  which  so  emi- 
nently distinguish  the  bold  Braidwood  brigadiers  of 
London,  and  the  grisette-adored,  brass-helmeted 
sapeur-pompiers  of  Paris.  They  seem  dull,  listless, 
ponderous  fellows — afflicted  with  the  general  police 
malady,  in  fact — and  look  upon  the  engines  as 
though  they  had  taken  them  in  charge,  and  were 
afraid  of  their  running  away.  You  would  imagine 
that  in  Russia,  where  the  equine  race  is  remarkable 
for  strength,  swiftness,  and  endurance,  the  fire-engine 
horses  would  be  the  very  best  in  the  world.  It  is 
not  so.  By  a  strange  perversity  of  martinet  desire 
to  keep  up  appearances,  the  authorities  instead  of 
harnessing  to  a  fire-engine  a  team  of  fighting,  kick- 
ing droschky  horses,  unapproachable  for  tearing  over 
the  stones  and  stopping  at  nothing,  provide  huge, 
showy,  clumsy  brutes,  whose  breed  appears  to  hover 
between  that  of  an  overfed  mourning-coach  horse, 
and  a  Suffolk  Punch  grown  out  of  all  stable  knowl- 
edge. The  Russians  brag — as  they  do,  indeed, 
about  most  things — of  the  tremendous  pace  these 
horses  are  up  to ;  but  I  have  seen  them  out,  over 
and  over  again,  when  the  cry  of  "  Agon !  ""  (fire)  has 
arisen,  and  there  has  been  a  conflagration  some- 


368  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

where.  Where  wheels  and  hoofs  have  assuredly  the 
best  chance,  on  the  smooth  wooden  pavement  of  the 
NevskoV,  they  go  at  a  tolerable  rate ;  but  elsewhere 
their  performances  are,  in  my  humble  opinion,  con- 
temptible. Much  clattering,  much  flint  and  steel 
pyrotechnics  between  horseshoes  and  pavement, 
much  smacking  of  serpentine  whips,  much  rattling 
of  wheels,  much  yelling  from  mounted  police-sol- 
diers to  moujiks  and  Ischvostchiks  to  get  out  of 
the  way,  much  knocking  down  of  those  unhappy 
souls  if  they  are  tardy  in  doing  so :  but,  of  real 
speed — of  that  lightning  flashing  of  locomotion 
which  we,  in  London,  are  dazed  with  when  the 
scarlet  fire-annihilator  with  its  brave  band  of  life- 
savers  is  seen  for  a  moment  in  the  eye's  field — there 
is  positively  none.  The  Russian  firemen  are  very 
brave  ;  that  is,  they  will  stand  on  a  roof  till  it  tum- 
bles into  the  flames,  calmly  holding  the  hose  in  their 
hands,  unless  they  are  ordered  to  come  down  ;  that 
is,  they  will  walk  gravely  up  a  blazing  staircase,  at 
the  word  of  command,  into  a  blazing  drawing-room 
to  seek  for  a  bird-cage  or  a  lady's  fan.  They  are 
especially  great  in  standing  to  be  burnt,  because 
they  have  been  posted  at  certain  spots  ;  and  scarcely 
a  fire  occurs  in  St.  Petersburg  without  one  or  more 
lives  being  sacrificed  through  this  stolid,  stupid, 
inert  bravery  of  the  firemen. 

Loitering  listlessly  on  the  threshold  of  the  grim 
Police  Siege,  (and  a  man  may  do  worse  than  loiter 
and  look  before  he  leaps  into  the  Cave  of  Tropho- 
nius,)  I  fell  into  a  strange  reverie,  gazing  up  at 
those  two  impassible  gray-coated  sentinels  in  the 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).   369 

watchtower's  balcony.  I  am  no  longer  Due  North 
in  Russia :  I  am  North,  among  the  mountains  of 
Cumberland,  and  somebody  has  sent  me  a  letter. 
It  is  full  of  news  about  Jones,  Brown,  and  Robinson, 
at  a  place  I  love.  It  tells  me  how  Miss  Myrtle,  who 
has  been  going  to  be  married  so  long,  is  married  at 
last;  how  Tom  Daffy  has  taken  orders,  and  Jack 
Edwards  has  taken  to  drinking ;  how  my  old  School- 
master has  gone  to  Australia,  and  my  old  sweetheart 
has  gone  dead.  But,  there  is  a  remarkable  para- 
graph that  interests  me,  above  all  things,  and,  I  know 
not  why,  fills  me  with  a  strange  feeling  of  envy.  I 
have  asked  for  news  of  two  friends,  and  I  am  told 
they  are  leading  bachelor  lives,  enjoying  themselves 
upon  hot  roast  goose  and  whiskey  punch  !  Heavens ! 
what  a  life !  Is  it  not  the  summum  bonum  of  hu- 
man felicity  ?  What  could  a  man  desire  more  ?  To 
live  on  hot  roast  goose — hot,  mind  ! — with  whiskey 
punch  (hot  also,  I  will  be  bound)  a  discretion.  Ma- 
homet's paradise,  Gulchenrouz's  abode  that  we  read 
of  in  Vathek,  the  Elysian  Fields,  Fiddler's  Green, 
all  the  'baccy  in  the  world  and  more  'baccy,  an  opi- 
um eater's  most  transcendant  trance — none  of  these 
states  of  beatitude  surely  could  compare  with  the 
goose  and  the  punch  condition  of  happiness.  And, 
with  this  silly  theorem  still  running  in  my  mind,  I 
find  myself  still  gazing,  gazing  moonwards,  and  to 
where  the  sentinels  are  watching,  and  still  find  my- 
self repeating,  What  a  life !  what  a  life !  till  a 
vagrant  shaft  of  thought  from  the  hot  goose  and 
punch  quiver,  flies  straight  to  one  of  those  gray- 
coated  targets  of  watchers,  and  hits  him  in  the  buli's- 
16* 


370  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

eye  or  the  button-hole ;  and,  still  repeating  What  a 
life !  I  run  off  at  a  tangent  of  reverie  when  I  think 
what  a  life  his  must  be ! 

If  they  were  to  put  a  musket  and  bayonet  into 
your  hands,  and  bid  you  walk  up  and  down  before 
a  door  for  two  hours ;  if  they  were  to  clap  me  a-top 
of  the  Monument,  and  bid  me  look  out,  and  note  if 
between  Shooter's  Hill  and  Hampstead  Heath  there 
happened  to  be  a  house  on  fire ;  would  not  you  and 
I  go  mad  ?  I  am  sure  I  should.  Suppose  yonder 
gray-coat,  or  this  slow-pacing  grenadier  to  be  a  man 
god-gifted  with  imagination,  with  impulses ;  suppose 
him  to  have  any  human  passion  or  scintillation  of 
human  thought  in  him;  and  reconcile  this,  if  you 
can,  with  his  watching  or  keeping  guard,  without 
casting  himself  from  the  tower,  without  attempting 
to  swallow  the  contents  of  his  cartouche-box,  or 
balancing  his  musket  and  bayonet  on  the  tip  of  his 
nose,  or  howling  forth  comic  songs,  or  essaying  the 
Frog  hornpipe !  You  will  say  that  it  is  habit,  that 
is  that  use  which  is  our  second  nature  that  makes 
him  go  through  this  weary  pilgrimage  quietly  and 
uncomplainingly.  Are  there  not  lighthouse  guardi- 
ans, omnibus  time-keepers,  men  who  watch  furnace 
fires  ?  It  may  be  so :  we  are  as  glib,  I  opine,  in 
talking  of  habit  in  men,  as  we  are  in  talking  of  in- 
stinct in  animals ;  but,  I  say  again,  "What  a  life ! 
what  a  life !  And  suddenly  remembering  that  I 
promised,  in  the  outset  of  this  paper,  not  to  di- 
gress, nay  vowed — rashly,  I  am  afraid,  like  Jeph- 
tha — and  have  already  broken  my  vow,  I  hurry 
away  from  the  octagonal  watchtower,  its  silent 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUET  (THE  POLICE).   871 

watchers  remaining  as  mysterious  to  me  as  the 
Sphinx. 

Two  more  gray-coated  men,  but  with  helmets 
(the  watchers  on  the  tower  wear  flat  caps  like  exag- 
gerated muffins,)  who  are  cracking  nuts  lazily  at  the 
ever-yawning  doorway  of  the  Siege,  point  out  the 
entrance  to  that  abode  of  misery.  Straight  from 
the  door,  and  perforating  the  centre  of  the  stone 
packing-case,  there  runs  a  vaulted  corridor  of  stone 
and  of  immense  length,  ending  at  last  in  a  back- 
yard with  very  high  walls,  of  which  I  shall  have  to 
tell  presently. 

Opens  into  this  corridor,  a  bureau  or  counting- 
house,  or  writing-room — call  it  by  what  name  you 
will.  From  a  great  deal  table  with  inkstands  resting 
in  holes  cut  in  the  wood,  and  from  a  multitude  of 
clerks  scribbling  furiously  thereat,  you  might  imag- 
ine yourself  in  the  reporters'  room  of  the  office  of  a 
daily  newspaper  in  the  old  days,  before  the  comfort- 
able cushioned-seated  writing-rooms  were  attached 
to  the  reporters'  gallery  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament ; 
you  might  imagine  these  scribblers  to  be  gentlemen 
of  the  press,  transferring  their  short-hand  notes  of  a 
day's  sitting  in  the  Commons  into  long  hand.  But 
they  are  not :  these  are  Tchinovniks — police  and 
government  employes — of  the  very  lowest  grade,  for 
no  person  of  noble  birth  would,  under  any  circum- 
stances, consent  to  serve  in  the  police.  The  lowest 
grade  in  the  Tchinn  confers  nobility  per  se ;  but, 
that  nobility  is  not  transmissible ;  and  though  a 
police-office  clerk  belongs  to  the  eighteenth  grade, 
and  has  the  right  to  the  title  of  Your  Honour,  his 


872  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

son  after  him  is  no  more  than  a  free  moujik,  and  is 
subject  to  the  stick  as  well  as  Ivan  the  moujik  and 
slave.  The  employes  of  the  police  are  mostly  re- 
cruited from  that  mysterious  and  impalpable  body 
who  in  Russia  do  duty  as  a  bourgeosie  or  middle- 
class,  but  do  not  at  all  answer  to  our  ideas  of  what 
a  middle-class  should  be,  and  utterly  fail,  as  Curtii, 
in  filling  up  that  yawning  gulf  that  separates  the 
Russian  noble  from  the  Russian  serf.  They  are 
sons  of  military  cantonists,  who  have  shown  some 
aptitude ;  they  are  orphans  adopted  by  the  govern- 
ment, and  educated  in  one  of  the  government 
schools ;  they  are  priests'  sons,  who  have  declined, 
contrary  to  the  almost  invariable  rule,  to  embrace 
their  fathers'  profession ;  they  are  waifs  and  strays 
of  foreigners  naturalized  in  Russia,  of  Germans 
trade-fallen,  (many  of  the  higher  police  employes  are 
Prussians,)  of  Fins  under  a  cloud,  of  recreant  Poles, 
of  progeny  of  byegone  Turkish  and  French  prison- 
ers of  war.  An  abominably  bad  lot  they  are.  See 
them  in  their  shabby  uniforms,  with  their  pale,  de- 
graded faces,  and  their  hideous  blue  cotton  pocket- 
handkerchiefs  with  white  spots :  mark  their  -reeking 
odour  of  stale  tobacco-smoke,  onions,  cucumbers, 
and  vodki :  watch  them  scrawling  over  their  detesta- 
ble printed  forms — forms  printed  on  paper  that  Mr. 
Catnach  of  Seven  Dials,  London,  would  be  ashamed 
to  send  forth  a  last  dying  speech  upon — but  ah1  duly 
stamped  with  the  Imperial  stamp,  and  branded  with 
that  Imperial  bat,  which  is  nailed  on  every  Imperial 
barn-door  in  Russia,  the  double  eagle.  Let  all  this 
pass.  They  may  not  be  able  to  help  their  shabbi- 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).   373 

ness,  their  evil  odour,  or  their  evil  looks ;  but,  their 
evil  doings  are  open  and  manifest,  and  infamous. 
A  police-office  employe  is  known  to  be — with  the 
single  exception  of  an  employS  in  the  custom-house 
at  Cronstadt,  who  may  be  said  to  whop  all  creation 
for  villany — the  most  dishonest,  rapacious,  avaricious, 
impudent,  and  mendacious  specimen  to  be  found  of 
the  Tchinovnik.  And  that  is  saying  a  great  deal. 

Lead  from  this  bureau,  but  not  from  the  corridor, 
sundry  chambers  and  cabinets,  where,  at  smaller 
tables  covered  with  shabby  green  baize,  sit  chiefs 
of  departments  of  the  great  Boguey  line  of  busi- 
ness ;  but,  all  filling  up  the  same  forms,  spilling  the 
same  ink,  nibbing  or  splitting  up  the  same  pens, 
raining  the  same  Sahara  showers  of  pounce,  and 
signing  the  same  documents  with  elaborate  signa- 
tures in  which  there  is  but  a  halfpenny-worth  of 
name  to  an  intolerable  quantity  of  paraphe  or  flour- 
ishing. Heaven  and  Boguey  himself  only  know 
what  all  these  forms  are  about ;  why,  if  it  be  true, 
as  the  Russians  boast,  that  there  is  less  criminal- 
ity in  St.  Petersburg  than  in  any  other  capital  in 
Europe,- there  should  be  two  score  clerks  continually 
scribbling  in  the  office  of  one  police-station.  It  is 
true  that  the  Russian  police  have  a  finger  in  every 
pie ;  that  they  meddle  not  only  with  criminals,  not 
only  with  passports,  but  with  hotels,  boarding  and 
lodging  houses,  theatres,  houses  not  to  be  mentioned 
except  as  houses,  balls,  soirees,  shops,  boats,  births, 
deaths,  and  marriages.  The  police  take  a  Russian 
from  his  cradle,  and  never  lose  sight  of  him  till  he  is 
snugly  deposited  in  a  parti-coloured  coffin  in  the 


374  A  JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

great  cemetery  of  Wassily  Ostrow.  Surely,  to  be 
an  orphan  must  be  a  less  terrible  bereavement  in 
Russia  than  in  any  other  country ;  for  the  police  are 
father  and  mother  to  everybody, — uncles,  aunts,  and 
cousins,  too ! 

The  major  of  police  is  a  mighty  man,  and  dwells 
in  a  handsomely-furnished  cabinet  of  his  own, — lofty 
and  spacious,  and  opening  also  from  the  vaulted  cor- 
ridor. Here  he  sits  and  examines  reports,  and,  not 
filling  up  those  eternal  forms,  deigns  to  tick  off  hig 
approval  of  their  contents,  and  to  affix  his  initials  to 
them.  Here  he  sits  and  interrogates  criminals  who 
are  brought  before  him  chained.  Here  he  decides 
on  the  number  of  blows  with  stick,  or  rod,  or  whip, 
to  be  administered  to  Ischvostchiks  who  have  been 
drunk  over  night,  or  to  cooks  who  have  been  sent  to 
the  police-station  to  be  flogged  for  burning  the  soup, 
or  serving  the  broccoli  with  the  wrong  sauce.  Here 
he  sits,  and  here  he  Takes. 

Taking,  on  the  part  of  the  police,  is  done  in  this 
wise.  As  the  recommendation  and  even  license  of 
the  police  is  necessary  to  every  one,  foreigner  or 
native,  who  wishes  to  establish  an  hotel,  an  eating- 
house,  a  cafe,  or  a  dram-shop,  in  St.  Petersburg,  it 
is  very  easily  to  be  understood  that  the  expectant 
Boniface  hastens  to  square  the  police  by  bribing 
them.  It  is  not  at  all  incomprehensible  either,  that 
the  proprietors  of  houses — public  or  private — which 
are  the  resort  of  loose  or  disorderly  characters, — of 
houses  where  thieves  are  notoriously  harboured,  or 
where  dissipation  is  rampant,  should  exhibit  a 
laudable  celerity  in  keeping  up  the  most  friendly 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  375 

financial  relations  with  the  police.  And  they  must 
not  only  bribe  the  major,  but  they  must  bribe  the 
employes,  and  even  the  gray-coated  police-soldiers. 
It  is  a  continual  and  refreshing  rain,  of  gray  fifty- 
rouble  notes  to  the  major,  and  of  blue  and  green 
.fives  and  threes  to  the  employes,  and  of  twenty-five 
copeck  pieces  to  the  gray-coats.  Then  the  major 
has  his  immediate  subordinates,  his  polizei-capitan, 
his  lieutenants,  his  secretaries,  his  orderlies,  who 
must  all  be  feed — and  feed  frequently ;  woe-betide 
the  hotel,  grog-shop  or  lodging-housekeeper  who  for- 
gets that  the  police  are  of  their  nature  hungry,  and 
that  the  stomachs  of  their  purses  must  be  filled  ! 
Any  stick  is  good  enough,  they  say,  (though  I  don't 
believe  it,)  to  beat  a  dog  with  ;  but,  it  is  certain  that 
any  accusation  trumped  up  against  a  financially 
recalcitrant  licensed  victualler  in  St.  Peterburg,  is 
sufficient  to  stir  the  official  wrath  of  the  grand- 
master of  police,  who  will,  unless  feed  to  a  tremen- 
dous extent  himself,  shut  up  that  unbribing  man's 
house  incontinent. 

This  is  why  I  have  called  the  Russian  police 
Boguey.  I  am  not  speaking  of  it  now,  under  its 
aspects  of  espionage,  and  slander,  and  midnight 
outrage.  I  am  speaking  of  it,  simply  as  a  body 
organized  to  protect  the  interests  of  citizens,  to 
watch  over  public  order  and  morals,  to  pursue  and 
detect,  and  take  charge  of  criminals.  It  does  not 
do  this.  It  simply  harasses,  frightens,  cheats,  and 
plunders  honest  folks.  It  is  as  terrible  to  the  igno- 
rant as  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost,  and  is  as  shameful 
an  imposture. 


376  A  JOURNUY   DUE   NORTH. 

In  the  course  of  one  month's  residence  in  St. 
Petersburg — from  May  to  June — I  was  robbed  four 
times  ;  of  "a  cigar-case,  of  a  porte-monnaie, — luckily 
with  no  gold  and  very  little  silver  in  it, — of  an  over- 
coat, which  was  coolly  and  calmly  stolen — goodness 
knows  by  whom — from  the  vestibule  of  a  house 
where  I  went  to  pay  a  visit ;  and  lastly,  of  an  entire 
drawerful  of  articles, — shirts,  neckerchiefs,  papers, 
(not  notes  on  things  Russian, — I  always  took  care 
of  those  about  me,)  cigars,  and  an  opera  glass.  The 
drawer  I  had  left  securely  locked  on  leaving  home 
in  the  morning.  On  returning,  I  found  it  broken 
open,  and  the  contents  rifled  as  I  have  described. 
Of  course,  nobody  knew  any  thing  about  it  ;  of 
course,  the  servants  were  ready  to  take  their  Rus- 
sian affidavits  that  no  one  had  entered  my  apart- 
ment during  my  absence, — by  the  door  at  least ; 
some  one  might,  they  delicately  hinted,  have  come 
in  by  the  window :  and,  indeed,  I  found  that  my 
casement  had  been  ingeniously  left  wide  open,  with 
a  view  of  favouring  the  out-door  theory.  I  was  in- 
clined, however,  most  shrewdly  to  suspect  a  certain 
stunted  chambermaid,  with  a  yellow  handkerchief 
tied  round  her  head,  and  an  evil  eye,  which  eye  I 
had  frequently  detected  casting  covetous  glances  at 
the  drawer  where  my  effects  lay  perdu.  I  was  in  a 
great  rage.  It  is  true  I  had  lost  no  jewellery.  My 
diamond  solitaire  was  in  safe  keeping ;  and  my  gold 
repeater  (by  Webster)  was  in  England,  four  pounds 
ten  slow.  But  I  was  exasperated  on  account  of  the 
loss  of  my  papers,  (might  there  not  have  been  a  son- 
net addressed  to  Her  with  a  large  H  among  them  !) 


THE   GREAT  .RUSSIAN   BOGUEY    (THE   POLICE.)      377 

and  on  the  first  flush  of  this  exasperation  I  deter- 
mined to  lay  before  the  police  authorities,  at  least  a 
declaration  of  the  robbery  of  which  I  had  been  the 
victim.  In  the  nick  of  time  there  came  and  arrested 
me  in  my  mad  career  a  certain  sage.  He  was  not  a 
Russian, — being,  in  truth,  of  the  French  nation,  and 
a  commercial  traveller  for  a  Champagne  house  at 
Rheims ;  but  he  had  travelled  backwards  and  for- 
wards in  Russia  for  years,  and  had  spied  out  the 
nakedness  of  that  land  thoroughly  from  Riazan  to 
Revel.  He  was  a  high-dried  coffee-coloured  man, 
who  wore  a  wig  and  a  black  satin  stock,  and  carried 
a  golden  snuff-box  with  a  portrait  of  Charles  the 
Tenth  on  the  lid.  Said  this  sage  to  me  : 

"  At  how  much  does  Monsieur  estimate  his  loss  ?  " 
"  Well,"  I  replied,  "  at  a  rough  guess,  one  might 
say  thirty  roubles." 

"  Then,"  resumed  the  sage,  "  unless  Monsieur 
wishes  to  spend,  in  addition  to  his  already  disbursed 
thirty,  another  fifty  roubles,  but  very  probably  more, 
and  over  and  above,  to  be  very  nearly  tracasse  to 
death,  I  should  advise  Monsieur  to  put  up  quietly 
with  his  loss,  and  to  say  nothing  about  it, — especially 
to  Messieurs  de  la  Police." 

The  oracle  thus  delivered  with  much  Delphic 
solemnity,  made  me  much  more  inquisitive  to  know 
why  in  this  strange  land  a  man  should  not  only  be 
robbed,  but  made  to  pay  besides,  for  having  been 
plundered.  In  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  it  appears 
to  me,  if  I  remember  the  circumstance  with  correct- 
ness, that  the  sage  and  I  adjourned  to  the  refresh- 
ment buffet  of  the  Hotel  Heyde,  and  that  there,  after 


378  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  consumption  of  several  malinka  riunkas,  or  petit 
verres  of  curacjoa,  and  the  incineration  of  sundry 
papiros  or  cigarettes,  I  became  strangely  enlightened 
as  to  what  an  expensive  luxury  being  robbed  is  in 
Russia. 

If  ever  you  journey  for  your  sins,  my  dear  friend, 
Due  North,  and  happen  to  have  any  thing  stolen 
from  you, — be  that  any  thing  your  watch,  your  fur 
pelisse,  or  your  pocket-book  full  of  bank-notes, — 
never  apply  to  the  police.  Grin  and  bear  it.  Put  up 
with  the  loss.  Keep  it  dark.  Buy  new  articles  to  re- 
place the  old  ones  you  have  lost ;  but,  never  complain. 
Complaints  will  lead  to  your  being  replundered  four- 
fold. They  will  end  in  your  being  hunted  like  a  fox, 
and  torn  up  at  last  piecemeal  by  the  great  fox-hunter 
Boguey  and  his  hounds. 

I  will  put  a  case  :  I  have  a  handsome  gold  watch 
(which  I  haven't),  and  I  am  in  St.  Peterburg  (where 
I  am  not).  I  go  for  an  evening's  amusement  to  the 
Eaux  Minerales,  where  the  chalybeate  springs  are 
the  pretext,  and  Herr  Isler's  gardens,  with  their  mili- 
tary bands  and  fireworks  and  suspicious  company, 
the  real  attraction.  My  watch  is  quietly  subtracted 
from  my  fob  by  some  dexterous  pickpocket  in  the 
gardens;  and  I  deserve  no  sympathy  for  my  mishap, 
for  Isler's  is  famous  for  its  filous.  The  next  day  I 
go  like  a  fool,  and  according  to  my  folly,  and  lodge 
my  complaint  at  the  police  Siege  of  my  arrondisse- 
ment.  I  have  the  number  of  my  watch.  I  give  the 
maker's  name.  I  describe  it  minutely,  and  narrate 
accurately  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
taken  from  me.  I  do  not  see  the  major  of  police, 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  379 

but  one  of  his  aids.  The  aid  tells  me  in  German 
(the  judicial  police,  as  a  rule,  do  not  speak  French  ; 
the  secret  police  speak  every  language  under  the 
sun, — Chinese,  I  am  sure,  included)  that  justice  is 
on  the  alert,  that  the  thief  will  certainly  be  caught 
and  brought  to  condign  punishment,  and  that  of  the 
ultimate  recovery  of  my  watch  there  cannot  be  any 
reasonable  doubt.  Clerks  have  got  through  a  pro- 
digious quantity  of  manuscript  all  about  me  and  my 
watch,  by  this  time ;  and  a  number  of  the  everlast- 
ing forms  are  pushed  towards  me  to  sign.  I  have 
been  told  beforehand  what  I  must  do,  and  that  there 
is  no  help  for  it,  so  I  slip  a  red  note  for  ten  roubles, 
en  sandwich,  between  two  of  the  forms,  and  hand 
the  triplet  to  the  aid,  who  with  a  greasy  smile  bids 
me  good  morning. 

Henceforth  I  belong  no  more  to  myself,  but  to 
Boguey.  I  am  hunted  up  in  the  morning  while  I 
am  shaving,  and  at  night  as  I  am  retiring  to  rest. 
I  am  peremptorily  summoned  to  the  police  office 
five  minutes  before  dinner,  and  five  minutes  before 
I  have  concluded  that  repast.  With  infernal  inge- 
nuity Boguey  fixes  on  the  exact  hours  when  I  have 
a  social  engagement  abroad,  to  summon  me  to  his 
cave  of  Trophonius,  and  submit  me  to  vexatious 
interrogatories.  Boguey  catches  sham  thieves  for 
me — worsted  stocking  knaves  with  hearts  in  their 
bellies  no  bigger  than  pins'  heads — mere  toasts  and 
butter,  who  would  as  lieve  steal  the  Czar's  crown  as 
a  gold  watch,  and  whose  boldest  feat  of  larceny 
would  probably  be  the  purloining  of  a  pickled  cu- 
cumber from  a  stall.  I  am  confronted  with  these 


380  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

scurvy  companions,  and  asked  whether  I  can  iden- 
tify them.  Boguey's  outlying  myrmidons  bring 
me  vile  pinchbeck  saucepan  lids,  infamous  tinpot 
sconces,  which  they  call  watches  ;  and  would  much 
like  to  know  if  I  can  recognize  them  as  my  prop- 
erty. All  this  time  I  am  paying  rouble  after  rouble 
for  perquisitions,  and  inquiries,  and  gratifications, 
and  messengers'  expenses,  and  stamps,  and  an  infin- 
ity of  other  engines  of  extortion.  At  last  (under 
advice)  I  rush  to  the  major  of  police,  and  ask  him 
plainly  (but  privately,)  for  how  much  he  will  let  me 
off.  He  smiles  and  refers  me  to  his  aid,  saying  that 
justice  cannot  have  her  course  impeded.  I  go  to 
the  aid,  and  he  smiles  too,  and  tells  me  that  he  does 
not  think  the  disbursement  of  twenty  roubles  will 
do  my  Excellency  any  harm ;  and  that  if  I  choose 
to  place  that  sum  in  his  hand  to  be  administered  in 
charity,  he  thinks  he  can  guarantee  my  not  being 
again  troubled  about  the  robbery.  So,  I  give  him 
the  money,  (which  I  don't,)  and,  thank  Heaven,  I 
I  am  rid  of  Boguey,  as  Andrew  Miller  thanked 
Heaven  he  was  rid  of  Doctor  Johnson. 

Now  do  you  understand  why  every  sensible  man 
in  Russia,  who  is  unfortunate  enough  to  be  robbed, 
leaves  Boguey  alone  ? 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  instances  illustrative 
of  the  taking  propensities  of  the  Russian  police, 
among  whom,  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow — as 
well  as  in  other  government  towns  of  the  empire — 
there  is  really  not  one  pin  to  choose.  Bogueyism  is 
synonymous  with  police  management  throughout 
all  the  Russias.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  one  or 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  381 

two  salient  traits  of  character  to  be  found  in  those 
terrifiers  of  well-doers  who  ought  to  terrify  evil- 
doers, but  who  are  the  worthy  successors,  and  have 
in  Muscovy  continued  the  glorious  traditions  of  that 
most  illustrious  of  all  takers — Jonathan  Wild  the 
Great. 

The  Sire  de  Brantome  generally  commences  his 
chivalrous  tittle-tattle  with  the  exordium  :  Une 
grande  dame,  forte  honeste,  que  fay  bien  cognu  (a 
great  lady,  and  a  mighty  honest  one,  whom  I  know 
extremely  well ;)  and  I  find  myself  as  constantly 
giving  an  anecdote  on  the  authority  of  some  Rus- 
sian acquaintance  far  nobler  than  honest.  In  this 
present  instance,  however,  my  informant  was  a 
French  hairdresser  and  perfumer,  who  had  settled 
at  Moscow,  with  the  stern  and  inflexible  determina- 
tion to  stay  there  five  years,  acquire  a  fortune  of 
fifty  thousand  francs,  and  then  quitting  that  beastly 
hole,  (by  which  abusive  epithet  he  qualified  the  holy 
empire  of  Russia,)  to  return  to  Arcissur-Aube ; 
which  much  whitewashed  French  town  was  his 
native  place,  and  there  to  planter  ses  choux, — or  cab- 
bages,—-defeat  the  cure*  of  St.  Symphorien  at  his 
favourite  game  of  tric-trac ;  become,  in  course  of 
time,  mayor  of  some  adjacent  village,  and  eventually, 
perhaps,  reassume  his  ancestral  title  of  Monsieur  de 
la  Bandoline  (now  lying  perdu,  like  the  Spanish 
Hidalgo's  rapier,  under  the  modest  nom  de  circon- 
stance  of  Hyacinthe,  coiffeur  et  peruquier  de  Paris,) 
and  become  sub-prefect  of  his  department. 

A  friend  of  M.  Hyacinthe' s — say  M.  Melasse — 
likewise  a  sprightly  Gaul,  kept  a  magazine  for  the 


382  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

sale  of  those  articles  called  by  the  Americans  no- 
tions, in  the  Tverskaia  Oulitza,  or  great  street  of 
Tver,  in  Moscow.  But  here  I  must  digress  with  a 
word  or  two  on  shops :  it  is  only  in  old  world  cities, 
where  the  civilization  is  old — very  old — that  you 
find  actual  shops — special  establishments  for  the 
sale  of  special  articles.  As  in  the  rude  and  remote 
country  village,  you 'have  Jerry  Nutt's  Everything 
Shop,  where  you  can  procure  almost  every  article — 
from  a  birch  broom  to  a  Byron-tie,  from  a  stick  of 
barley-sugar  to  a  lady's  chemisette  ;  so,  in  newly- 
settled  or  newly-civilized  lands  you  have  not  shops 
but  Stores,  where  edibles  are  mixed  up  with  pot- 
ables, and  textile  fabrics  with  both,  and  books  with 
beeswax,  and  carpeting  with  candles.  Our  Amer- 
ican cousins  have  repudiated  the  Everything  ele- 
ment, and  have  Shops  that  can  vie  with,  if  they  do 
not  surpass  the  counter-jumping  palaces  of  Regent 
Street,  London,  and  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  Paris.  Yet 
they  still  retain  the  name  of  a  Store,  for  an  estab- 
lishment, say  a  shawl-shop,  more  magnificent  than 
Swan  and  Edgar's,  corruscating  with  glass  and  gild- 
ing, and  mural  paintings,  and  variegated  marbles ; 
and  the  Russians,  for  all  the  bigness  of  their  cities, 
have  not  yet,  as  a  rule,  progressed  beyond  stores — 
in  their  streets.  In  the  bazaars  there  are,  certainly, 
special  standings  for  special  articles ;  but,  these  are 
more  properly  stalls  than  shops.  In  the  two  great 
shops  of  St.  Petersburg — the  Angliski  Magazin,  in 
the  little  Millionne,  and  the  Ruski  Magazin,  on  the 
Nevskoi — the  incongruous  nature  of  the  articles  sold 
is  astonishing,  and,  in  the  smaller  shops,  there  is  a 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  383 

distracting  confusion  in  the  classification  of  the  arti- 
cles purchased.  The  hairdressers  sell  almost  every- 
thing. You  have  to  go  to  the  grocers  for  picture- 
frames.  The  tobacconists  sell  tea  ;  the  glove-makers 
sell  porte-monnaies.  The  best  cigars  to  be  had  in 
Petersburg  are  purchased  at  an  apotheka  or  drug- 
gist's shop,  in  the  little  Morskaia,  (the  druggists  sell 
camera-obscuras,  too.)  You  may  buy  French 
painted  fans  of  the  confectioners,  and  there  is 
scarcely  a  fashionable  modiste  who  does  not  sell 
flesh  and  blood.  Altogether,  our  respected  friend 
Mother  Hubbard  would  have  enormous  trouble  in 
Russia  in  attempting  to  purvey  for  that  insatiable 
dog  of  hers,  who  (like  a  minister's  mother-in-law) 
was  always  wanting  something.  She  would  have 
had  to  go  to  the  bishop's  to  buy  him  ale,  or  to  the 
Winter  Palace  to  buy  him  a  bone. 

M.  Melasse  sold  groceries  and  a  little  millinery, 
and  a  considerable  quantity  of  coloured  prints,  and 
some  Bordeaux,  and  much  Champagne.  But,  M. 
Melasse  happened,  though  doing  a  good  business, 
to  have  a  temper  of  his  own.  Why  should  M.  Me- 
lasse's  temper  interfere  with  the  success  of  M.  M.6- 
lasse's  business  ?  So  far,  that  the  black  dog  which 
occasionally  sat  on  the  worthy  burgess's  shoulder, 
could  not  abide  that  other  and  Blacker  Dog,  Boguey, 
the  Police  of  Moscow,  and  barked  at  him  contin- 
ually. Ches  Chiens,  (these  dogs,)  the  impudent  Me- 
lasse called  the  guardians  of  public  order.  One  after- 
noon two  gentlemen  in  gray  called  on  M.  Melasse, 
(he  spoke  Russ  tolerably,  which  in  a  Frenchman  is 
something  marvellous,)  and  saluting  him  cordially, 


384  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

produced  from  a  remarkably  dirty  envelope  of  sack- 
ing two  fine  sugar-loaves — the  apex  of  one  of  them 
considerably  damaged.  These,  they  told  him,  had 
been  found  in  the  open  street  opposite  his  house  on 
the  previous  night ;  were  evidently  the  produce  of  a 
robbery  committed  on  his  premises  ;  and  were  now 
brought  to  him,  not  to  be  restored,  but  to  be  identi- 
fied, in  order  that  justice  might  inform  itself,  and 
perquisitions  be  made  respecting  the  thief.  Now, 
the  seller  of  notions  happened  to  be  entirely  out  of 
sugar  in  loaves,  had  broken  up  his  last  a  fortnight 
before,  was  rapidly  exhausting  his  stock  of  lump 
sugar,  and  was  anxiously  expecting  a  fresh  consign- 
ment. He  therefore  energetically  protested  that  the 
robbery  could  not  have  taken  place  in  his  house ; 
because,  imprimis  he  had  securely  fastened  doors 
and  windows,  and  kept  a  fierce  watchdog ;  secondly, 
because  he  had  no  sugar-loaves  to  be  robbed  of. 
The  men  in  gray  smiled  grimly,  and  showed  the 
astonished  grocer  his  own  private  trademark  on  both 
the  loaves.  He  could  not  even  surmise  them  to  be 
forged  ;  they  were  evidently  his.  The  men  in  gray 
therefore  proceeded  to  commence  their  perquisitions, 
which  they  effected  by  ransacking  the  house  and 
shop  from  garret  to  basement — spoiling  every  article 
of  merchandise  they  could  conveniently  spoil — 
avowedly  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  traces  of  the 
burglarious  entrance  of  the  thieves.  Ultimately  they 
left  a  man  in  possession,  to  watch,  in  case  the  rob- 
bers renewed  their  nefarious  attempt.  This  assist- 
ant Boguey  turned  out  to  be  a  gray-coated  skeleton 
in  every  closet  in  the  house.  He  smoked  the  vilest 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  385 

Mahorka ;  he  drank  vodki  like  a  vampire ;  his  tak- 
ing snuff  was  as  the  sound  of  a  trumpet ;  he  de- 
manded victuals  like  a  roaring  lion ;  he  devoured 
them  like  a  ghoule ;  he  awoke  the  family  in  the  dead 
of  night  with  false  alarms  of  fire  and  thieves ;  he 
drove  M.  Melasse  to  frenzy,  Madame  M.  to  passion- 
ate indignation  ;  Mademoiselle  M.  to  tears  and  hys- 
terics ;  the  younger  M.'s  nearly  into  fits  of  terror ; 
and  he  stayed  a  fortnight.  The  thieves  didn't  come, 
and  he  didn't  go.  •  In  the  mean  time  the  wretched 
grocer  lived  the  life  of  a  hunted  cur.  The  police 
put  the  sugar-loaves  (metaphorically)  into  a  tin  ket- 
tle, and  attaching  them  to  his  dorsal  vertebrae,  hunted 
him  perpetually.  The  same  process  of  summoning, 
resummoning,  interrogating,  and  cross-interrogating, 
which  I  have  already  described  in  my  own  (suppo- 
sitions) case,  was  gone  through  with  him.  The 
police  found  out  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  going 
daily  on  'change,  (for  the  good  man  speculated  a 
little  in  Volga  Steamboat  and  Russ- American  Iron- 
work shares.)  Of  course  he  had  to  attend  the  police 
office  daily,  for  a  week,  exactly  at  'change  time,  and 
was  released  by  his  tormentors  exactly  as  the  Ex- 
change gates  closed.  The  police  captured  two  poor 
devils  of  moujiks,  who,  setting  aside  the  fact  that 
they  had  been  previously  convicted  of  robbery,  were 
as  honest  men  as  the  Governor  of  Moscow,  and  had 
no  more  to  do  with  the  robbery  (which  had  never 
been  committed)  than  I  had.  These  unfortunate 
rogues  they  kept  chained  for  some  time,  and  living 
on  bread  and  water  in  an  infamous  den  at  the  Police 

Siege,  averring   that  there  was  the   strongest  pre- 
17 


386  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

sumption  of  their  guilt.  They  suddenly  discovered 
that  they  were  as  free  from  blame  as  the  driven 
snow  ;  setting  them  at  liberty,  they  sent  in  a  peremp- 
tory demand  to  M.  Melasse  for  a  corpulent  sum  of 
roubles,  to  defray  the  expenses  of  their  board  and 
lodging  during  their  imprisonment,  and  to  compen- 
sate them*  for  the  injury  they  had  suffered.  He  at 
first  refused  to  pay,  but  ultimately  disbursed  the 
sum  demanded,  in  despair.  He  was  beginning  to 
entertain  the  notion  of  a  plunge,  for  good  and  all, 
into  the  Moskva  River,  when  he  received  a  commu- 
nication from  the  mayor  of  police,  informing  him  in 
the  most  polite  terms  that  it  had  been  considered 
expedient  to  refer  his  case,  which  was  considered  to 
be  a  very  intricate  one,  to  the  Ouprava  Blagotschi- 
nia,  or  Bureau  de  Bon  Ordre,  presided  over  by  the 
Grand  Master  of  Police  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  beg- 
ging him  to  take  the  necessary  steps  to  "present  a 
petition  to  the  Governor- General  of  Moscow,  in 
order  that  he  might  procure  a  passport,  and  proceed 
to  head  police  quarters  at  St.  Petersburg,  there  to 
be  interrogated  concerning  the  most  remarkable 
robbery  that  had  for  a  long  time  baffled  the  sagacity 
of  justice; — the  more  remarkable,  I  may  myself 
remark,  for  its  never  having  taken  place.  Melasse, 
the  unhappy,  rushed  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  and 
the  polished  runners  of  a  sledge  (it  was  in  winter) 
to  the  police  office.  He  thrust  five  roubles  into  the 
first  gray-coat's  hand  he  met,  and  promised  him  ten, 
if  he  would  procure  him  immediate  speech  with  the 
Mayor  of  Police.  Ushered  into  the  presence  of  that 
functionary  he  conjured  him,  without  halting  for 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  387 

breath,  to  tell  him  how  much,  in  the  name  of  Heaven, 
he  would  take  to  release  him  from  this  intolerable 
persecution.  The  polizei-mayor  laughed,  poked  him 
in  the  ribs,  and  offered  him  to  snuff. 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you  returning  to  better  senti- 
ments, my  dear  M.  Me"lasse,"  he  said  quite  cordially. 
"  What  is  the  good  of  fighting  against  us  ?  Why 
omit  doing  what  must  be  done  ?  You  are  in  Russia, 
you  must  be  content  to  have  things  managed  a  la 
Russe.  When  you  live  with  wolves  you  must  needs 
howl,  M.  Mdlasse." 

"  How  much  ?  "  the  victim  palpitated. 

"  There,  there,  brat,"  (brother,)  continued  the  warm- 
hearted police-mayor.  "  You  shall  be  absolved  easily. 
I  think  if  you  were  to  place  a  hundred  and  fifty 
silver  roubles  in  that  blotting-book,  I  should  know 
how  to  relieve  many  destitute  families.  We  see  so 
MUCH  misery,  my  dear  friend,"  he  added  with  a 
sigh. 

M.  Melasse  set  his  teeth  very  closely  together; 
drew  the  hundred  and  fifty  silver  roubles  in  paper- 
money  from  his  pocket-book,  shut  his  eyes,  that  he 
might  not  see  his  substance  departing  from  him,  and 
crammed  the  money  into  the  blotting-book. 

"  And  I  tell  you  what,  uncle  of  mine,"  the  mayor 
resumed,  jauntily  fluttering  the  blotting-book  leaves, 
and  twirling  (quite  accidentally,  of  course)  the  greasy 
little  packet  of  wealth  into  his  ravenous  palm,  "  you 
shall  not  say  that  the  Russian  police  never  return 
any  of  the  goods  they  have  recovered;  for,  this  very 
afternoon,  I  will  send  down  two  of  my  men,  and 

YOU  SHALL  HAVE  YOUR  SUGAR-LOAVES  BACK  AGAIN." 


d»0  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

With  a  suppressed  shriek,  the  emancipated-loaf 
captive  entreated  the  mayor  never  to  let  him  hear  or 
see  more  of  that  accursed  sweet-stuff.  The  mayor 
was  a  placable  man,  and  open  to  suasion.  He  prom- 
ised to  allow  the  sugar-question  to  drop  forever; 
and  dignifying  the  unroubled  grocer  with  the  affec- 
tionate cognomen  of  Batiouschka — little  father — 
bade  him  an  airy  good  morning,  and  retired  into  his 
sanctum  sanctorum :  there,  doubtless  to  lock  up  his 
honestly-earned  roubles  in  his  cassette,  and,  perhaps, 
to  laugh  somewhat  in  that  official  sleeve  of  his,  at 
the  rare  sport  of  swindling  a  Fransoutz.  The  moral 
of  the  story  is,  that  Melasse  did  not  quit  Moscow  at 
once,  and  in  disgust.  He  stopped,  for  he  also  was 
possessed  of  that  fixed  idea  common  to  most  for- 
eign traders  in  Russia,  of  acquiring  a  given  number 
of  thousand  silver  roubles,  and  retiring,  in  the  end, 
to  an  Arcissur-Aube  of  his  own,  where  he  could 
enjoy  his  otium  cum  dignitate,  and  abuse  the  land 
where  he  had  made  his  money.  He  stopped;  and 
there  was  great  joy  among  the  police-population  of 
Moscow  the  holy,  that  there  was  no  Inostranez,  or 
stranger,  in  Moscow  who  kept  on  better  terms  with 
Boguey,  or  was  prompter  and  more  liberal  in  his 
felicitations  (silver  rouble  felicitations)  on  New  Year's 
Day  than  M.  Melasse  of  the  Tvershala. 

Now,  New  Year's  Day  is  the  Russian  (as  it  is  the 
French)  Boxing  Day.  Apart  from  the  genteel  ca- 
deaux  of  bon-bons,  gloves,  and  jewellery,  which  you 
are  expected  (under  pain  of  banishment  from  soirdes 
and  ostracism  from  morning  calls)  to  make  to  gen- 
teel acquaintances,  you  have  your  servants  to  tip  ; 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  389 

your  dvnornik  to  tip ;  and,  especially,  your  police  to 
tip.  If  you  are  fortunate  enough  to  be  a  private 
individual,  you  get  off  with  a  visit  from  the  Nadzira- 
telle  of  the  Quartal,  or  quartier  (a  sub-division  of 
the  arrondissement),  who,  with  many  bows,  offers 
you  his  felicitations,  and  to  whom  you  give  ten 
roubles.  But,  if  you  are  a  nobleman  or  an  hotel- 
keeper,  your  lot  is  far  harder.  By  a  compliment  of 
fifty  (many  give  a  hundred)  roubles  you  may  pur- 
chase impunity  during  the  ensuing  year  for  almost 
every  act  or  deed,  legal  or  illegal,  over  which  the 
police  exercise  any  amount  of  control.  The  hotel- 
keepers  give  and  tremble ;  the  nobles  give  and  de- 
spise. That  same  newly-fledged  cornet  I  told  you 
of,  who  had  the  big  house  to  himself,  assured  me 
that  he  never  allowed  an  officer  of  the  judicial  police 
to  cross  the  threshold  of  his  apartment.  The  secret 
police  come  in  without  being  asked,  and  leave  their 
marks  behind  them.  "  When  New  Year's  Day 
arrives,"  my  young  friend  would  say,  "  and  the  pigs 
come  with  their  salutations,  I  send  them  out  the 
money,  but,  as  to  entering  my  house — never !  "  Hor- 
ror, hatred,  and  contempt  for  Boguey  are,  I  believe, 
the  only  definite  and  sincere  feelings  of  which  Nous 
Autres  are  capable. 

I  wish  that  I  could  leave  M.  Hyacinthe,  the  per- 
fumer, without  telling  you  about  somebody  I  met 
there  one  Sunday,  (I  used  frequently  to  dine  with 
that  genial  barber,)  somebody  whose  face  and  voice, 
and  gestures  and  miserable  story,  came  with  me 
adown  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  and  through  the  Baltic 
Sea ;  came  with  me  through  the  Little  Belt  up 


390  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

Flensburg  Fjord ;  came  with  me  throughout  the 
timber-town  of  Rendsburg,  and  by  the  iron  way  to 
Hamburg,  and  so  to  Brussels  in  Brabant,  and  at  last 
to  where  I  now  write  this.  You  shall  hear. 

There  is,  perchance,  no  family  circle  so  difficult  of 
access  as  a  French  one.  A  man  may  live  twenty 
years  in  France,  without  once  enjoying  even  the 
spectre  of  a  chance  of  being  admitted  into  a  French 
interior.  You,  boastful  Paris  men  who  pay  your 
first-class  fare  at  London  Bridge  at  half-past  eight, 
p.  M.,  and  are  in  Paris  by  half-past  nine  the  next 
morning — who  live  in  Paris  for  months,  and  fancy 
you  know  Paris  life  thoroughly — to  what  extent  are 
you  cognizant  of  the  real  ways  and  means,  of  the 
real  manners  and  customs  of  the  inscrutable  Lute- 
tia  ?  You  walk  about  the  Boulevards  or  the  Palais 
Royal ;  you  stay  at  Meurice's  or  the  Hotel  Bedford  ; 
you  dine  at  the  Trois  Freres  or  at  Phillipe's ;  you 
even,  if  you  be  of  Bohemia,  and  determined  to  see 
life,  live  in  the  Rue  St.  Jacques,  or  that  of  the  Ecole 
de  Me*decin,  frequent  the  Prado  and  the  Closerie 
des  Lilas,  and  mistake  some  milliner's  girl  for  Be- 
ranger's  Lisette.  Have  you  "ever  seen  the  French  at 
home  ?  Do  you  know  what  manner  of  people  they 
be  ?  When  you  do  know,  we  shall  have  fewer  fool- 
ish books  written  about  foreign  countries.  But  what 
am  I  saying  about  foreign  countries  ?  Have  I  not 
been  to  a  foreign  country  myself,  and  am  I  not  (it 
may  be)  writing  an  excessively  foolish  book  about 
it  ?  Are  we  not  living  in  the  days  of  embassies,  and 
of  literary  secretaries  of  embassy  who  seem  deter- 
mined to  verify  the  maxim  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton  : — 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).  391 

that  "  an  ambassador  is  one  sent  abroad  to  lie  for 
the  good  of  his  country  ;"  adding,  by  way  of  rider 
to  his  dictum,  the  axiom  of  La  Rochefoucault,  that 
"  great  names  dishonour  rather  than  elevate  those 
who  do  not  know  how  to  bear  them  with  propriety." 
Without  enlarging  at  all  upon  any  opportunities 
I  might  or  might  not  have  had  of  seeing  French 
people  at  home,  in  their  own  country,  I  hope  I  may 
be  allowed  to  allude  to  the  very  pleasant  Sundays  I 
spent  with  my  friend  the  French  barber.  It  was  a 
model  French  interior.  There  was  the  grand  old 
French  lady  with  snow-white  ringlets,  tight,  long, 
and  cylindrical,  like  frozen  sausages.  There  was  the 
imbecile  grandfather,  with  a  black  silk  skull-cap  on 
his  poor  old  pate,  and  his  shrunken  limbs  wrapped  in 
a  gray  duffell  dressing-gown  ;  an  old  man  past  every 
thing,  except  forbearance — weak,  helpless,  useless — 
a  baby  come  back  to  the  primeval  baldness,  but  un- 
commonly good  at  his  meals — loved  and  tended,  and 
cared  for,  however,  as  though  he  had  been  grand- 
father Weguelin,  and  could  ask  his  grandchildren  to 
tea  in  the  bank  parlour  of  the  Bank  of  England 
every  evening,  and  hand  round  to  them  boiled  bul- 
lion, and  sycee  silver  Sally  Lunns.  The  picture 
would  not  be  even  artistically  complete  without  a 
jeune  personne — a  blushing  young  maiden  of  six- 
teen— swathed  up  to  the  chin  in  white  muslin,  who 
is  told  that  she  must  always  keep  her  eyes  cast 
down ;  who  will  be  married  shortly,  to  somebody 
she  does  not  like ;  and  who  will  eventually  run 
away,  or  otherwise  misbehave  herself,  with  some- 
body she  does  like.  The  middle  distance  would  be 


892  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

wanting  to  the  picture  were  I  to  omit  a  peculiarly 
sharp  boy  in  a  black  velvet  jacket  and  sugar-loaf 
buttons,  and  a  pair  of  cream-coloured  trousers,  much 
resembling — as  regards  their  degree  of  inflation — 
balloons.  A  youth  who  is  continually  (and  I  am 
afraid  with  detriment  to  the  progress  of  his  studies) 
practising  inquiries  into  the  laws  of  gravitation,  with 
a  cup  and  ball,  and  who  assuredly  must  do  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  damage  to  his  father's  stock  of 
pomatum,  if  we  are  to  take  into  consideration  the 
prodigious  accumulation  of  fatty  substances  patent 
on  his  hair.  There  would  be  something  out  of 
keeping,  too,  were  the  painter  to  omit  the  inevitable 
accessory  to  all  French  families  at  home  or  abroad, 
from  Caen  to  Kamschatka,  in  the  shape  of  an  aunt, 
a  cousin,  a  niece,  a  dependent  of  some  sort,  in  fact — 
ordinarily  a  subdued  female  with  a  bulbous  nose, 
and  clad  in  very  scanty,  snuffy  habiliments,  who  sits 
and  works,  and  tends  children,  and  is  the  friend  of  the 
family;  and  whose  only  amusement,  when  she  is 
left  quite  alone,  seems  to  be  to  sit  and  cry  her  eyes 
out,  with  the  assistance  of  a  very  sparse  square  of 
pocket-handkerchief.  Her  name  is  usually  Made- 
moiselle Hortense.  Last  of  all,  there  must  perforce 
be  put  on  the  canvas  a  minute  point  of  detail  an- 
swering to  the  name  of  a  poodle  or  a  mongrel,  as 
the  case  may  be — a  dog  who  does  exactly  as  he 
likes,  is  addressed  by  affectionate  nicknames  by 
the  simple  French  folk,  and  is  generally  made 
much  of. 

Not  last  of  all,  at  least  in  the  barber's  household. 
There  was  the  old  lady,  the  jeune  personne,  the  vel- 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).   393 

vet  and  sugar-loafed  boy,  the  dubious  aunt  or  niece, 
the  dog ;  and  there  was  Somebody. 

A  perfectly  white,  haggard,  worn-out,  spectral 
girl.  A  girl  robbed  from  her  coffin.  An  awful  sight, 
with  restless,  travelling  eyes,  with  a  horrible  head 
rocking  backwards  and  forwards,  with  hands  con- 
tinually clasping  and  unclasping,  with  knees  that 
(you  could  see  beneath  her  drapery)  continually 
sought  each  other,  and  then  gave  time  to  her  feet, 
which  beat  the  devil's  tattoo  incessantly.  She  had 
rich  glossy  hair,  massed  on  each  side  of  her  head ; 
her  eyes  were  dark  and  lustrous  ;  her  teeth  were 
gates  of  ivory  ;  her  form  was  slender  and  graceful ; 
yet,  had  she  been  as  hideous  as  the  witch  Sycorax, 
as  terrible  as  Medusa,  she  could  not  with  all  her 
beauty,  have  impressed  you  with  a  greater  sense  of 
horror  and  back-shrinking.  The  girl  was  mad,  of 
course.  She  was  quite  harmless,  only  rocking  her- 
self backwards  and  forwards,  and  rolling  those  wild 
eyes  of  hers,  and  (when  she  was  unobserved)  mut- 
tering something  about  her  mother.  She  used  to 
dine  with  us,  and  ply  her  knife  and  fork,  and  drink 
her  weak  wine  and  water  with  the  best  of  the  sane 
people  present ;  but,  she  always  relapsed  into  the 
rocking,  and  the  rolling,  and  the  muttering  about  her 
mother,  as  we  were  sitting  down  to  dominoes  or  las- 
quenet.  Nobody  took  much  notice  of  her.  She  sat 
by  the  fire-place,  with  her  haggard  face,  and  a  tight- 
fitting  black  velvet  dress  ;  and,  when  she  was  spoken 
of,  was  alluded  to  as  Cette  pauvre  Josephine. 

That  poor  Josephine's  story  was  a  very  simple 
and  a  very  sad  one.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a 

17* 


394  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

French  dancing-master,  long  settled  in  Russia,  and 
a  Russian  subject.  Her  mother  had  been  some 
French  ballet-dancer,  who  had  waltzed  away  from 
her  obligations,  and  had  pirouetted  into  an  utter 
abnegation  of  her  social  ties.  Such  things  happen. 
She  was  Madame  Somebody  at  Palermo,  while  her 
husband  was  Monsieur  Somebody-else  at  Moscow. 
He  had  gained  enough  money  by  his  profession  to 
send  his  daughter  to  France  for  her  education, 
whence  she  returned  (to  her  misfortune)  young, 
beautiful,  and  accomplished.  Her  father  pleased 
himself  with  the  notion  that  his  Josephine  must 
indubitably  become  the  wife  of  some  puissant 
seigneur;  but,  unfortunately,  in  the  midst  of  this 
dream  he  died.  He,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  had 
been  naturalized  a  Russian  subject,  and  his  child 
was  one  after  him. 

The  girl,  left  alone  and  unfriended  in  this  Gehenna 
of  a  country,  fell.  The  dancing-master  had  dissi- 
pated all  his  economies  of  roubles,  and  she  had  no 
money.  She  went  to  St.  Petersburg,  having  no 
money,  in  a  caliche  with  eight  horses  (it  was  before 
the  railway  time,)  with  a  government  Padaroshna,* 


*  A  padaroshna  is  an  official  permission  to  travel  with  post- 
horses,  without  which  you  might  draw,  your  carriage  yourself,  for 
no  post-horses  would  you  obtain.  Government  couriers  have 
special  padaroshnas,  which  entitle  them  to  take  horses  before  any 
other  traveller ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  uncommon  at  a  post-house 
in  the  interior  to  see  a  Serjeant  of  infantry,  who  happens  to  be  a 
bearer  of  despatches,  quietly  order  the  horses  just  harnessed  to  a 
carriage  containing  a  whole  family,  to  be  taken  out,  and  attached 
to  his  own  telega  or  kibitka. 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).   395 

and  a  courier  riding  twenty  versts  a-head  to  secure 
relays  of  horses.  M.  de  Sardanapalasoff,  of  the 
Empress's  regiment  of  cuirassiers  of  the  guard,  took 
a  magnificent  apartment  for  her  in  the  Italianskaia 
Oulitza;  she  had  a  caleche,  a  brougham,  a  country- 
house — the  very  model  of  a  Swiss  chalet  in  the 
islands — saddle  horses,  a  gondola  with  a  velvet  awn- 
ing, white  satin  cushions,  and  a  Persian  carpet ;  a 
box  at  the  Balschoi  theatre,  and  one  at  the  French 
house ;  a  lady's  maid,  a  chasseur,  a  maitre  d'hotel, 
a  Danish  dog  nearly  as  large  as  a  donkey, — every 
luxury,  in  fact.  M.  de  Sardanapalasoff  gave  some 
magnificent  champagne  banquets  at  her  apartments. 
La  Bere"sina,  as  the  Muscovite-Parisienne  was  called, 
was  the  reigning  beauty  of  the  demi-monde  of  St. 
Petersburg.  A  prince  of  the  imperial  blood  posi- 
tively came  to  one  of  the  Bdresina's  petit  soupers, 
and  deigned  to  express  his  opinion  that  she  was 
charming. 

M.  de  Sardanapalasoff 's  mamma  was  the  Prin- 
cess Zenobiaschkin,  and  he  was  the  most  dutiful  of 
sons ;  so,  when  she  signified  to  him  her  maternal 
commands  that  he  should  obtain  the  imperial  per- 
mission to  travel  for  two  years,  and  escort  her  to 
Paris,  Italy,  and  the  baths  of  Hombourg,  he  hastened 
to  comply  with  her  mandates  in  the  most  filial  man- 
ner. Some  unjust  constructions  were  of  course  put 
on  this  alacrity.  Some  envious  persons  declared 
that  the  emperor  himself  had,  through  the  medium 
of  the  Princess  Zenobiaschkin  offered  the  alterna- 
tive of  foreign  travel  or  the  Caucasus  to  the  young 
guardsman  ;  an  of  course  unfounded  report  having 


396  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

got  abroad  that  M.  de  Sardanapalasoff  while  on  duty 
at  the  palace  of  Tsarski-Selo,  had  been  kicked  in 
full  uniform  by  a  vindictive  major  of  dragoons :  the 
cause  of  the  humiliating  correction  being  alleged  to 
be  the  detection  of  the  Bere"sina's  noble  friend  in  the 
act  of  cheating  at  ecarte.  Be  it  as  it  may,  M.  de 
Sardanapalasoff  was  desolated  to  part  with  the 
Berezina,  but  he  did  it ;  it  must  have  affected  him 
greatly  to  be  obliged  to  sell  off  the  whole  of  his  (or 
her)  splendid  furniture — nay,  as  much  of  her  own 
private  jewellery  as  he  could,  by  fraud  or  force,  lay 
his  hands  upon.  So  much  did  it  affect  him  in  fact, 
that  he  went  off  with  the  whole  of  the  proceeds  of 
the  sale  in  his  pocket,  and  left  the  Bere"sina  without 
a  friend  in  the  world,  and  with  scarcely  a  hundred 
roubles  in  her  pocket. 

Josephine  (she  had  done  with  the  name  of  the 
Beresina  now)  did  not  flow  down  that  golden  tide 
that  runs  over  the  sands  of  Shame  in  that  great,  salt, 
fathomless  sea  of  tears,  on  which  you  shall  descry 
no  land  on  lee-bow,  or  weather-bow,  save  the  head- 
lands of  Death.  With  a  stern  and  strong  determina- 
tion to  sin  no  more,  she  went  to  Moscow,  where  she 
had  some  acquaintances,  if  not  friends.  She  was 
clever  with  her  needle.  She  could  embroider ;  she 
could  make  bonnets ;  she  had  both  taste  and  talent. 
It  was  not  long  before  she  obtained  employment  in 
the  shop  of  one  of  the  most  famous  French  milliners 
in  Moscow. 

For  her  misery,  she  was  still  very  beautiful.  I 
have  said  that  the  fashionable  milliners  of  Moscow 
are  dealers  in  other  wares  than  millinery.  The 


THE  GREAT  RUSSIAN  BOGUEY  (THE  POLICE).   397 

buyers  of  those  goods  are  the  dissolute  young  nobles 
of  the  guard.  Josephine  might  very  soon  have  had 
another  splendid  suite  of  apartments,  another  chas- 
seur, another  lady's  maid,  had  she  so  pleased ;  but 
the  poor  girl  was  sick  of  it,  and  was  determined  to 
be  a  milliner's  workwoman  all  her  life,  rather  than 
be  a  golden  toy  to  be  tossed  aside  when  its  attrac- 
tion had  worn  out.  She  refused  solicitation  after 
solicitation,  offer  after  offer  from  the  snuffy  old 
French  hag,  (there  is  nothing  so  bad  as  a  bad  French 
woman,)  into  whose  employ  she  had  entered.  This 
unprotected,  outraged  girl  declared  that  she  would 
no  longer  remain  in  her  service.  She  would  go,  she 
said,  that  very  instant,  and  rose  to  leave  the  work- 
room. The  woman  put  out  her  arm  to  prevent  her 
passing  the  threshold,  and  Josephine  naturally  pushed 
it  away.  This  was  all  the  milliner  wanted. 

"  Very  well,  very  well !  "  she  said,  "  bear  witness, 
mesdemoiselles  all,  this  person,  my  servant — my 
SERVANT,  mind — has  been  guilty  of  insubordination 
and  rebellion  towards  me,  her  mistress.  We  shall 
see,  we  shall  see  !  " 

She  went  that  day  and  lodged  a  complaint  against 
her  workwoman  at  the  police-office.  The  girl  was 
a  Russian  subject,  and  the  daughter  of  a  Russian 
subject,  and  there  was  no  help  for  her  on  this  side 
Heaven.  She  was  arrested  that  afternoon,  and  car- 
ried to  the  Siege,  her  mistress  accompanying  her. 
There,  in  the  bureau,  she  was  asked  certain  ques- 
tions, the  milliner  signed  a  paper  and  paid  certain 
moneys  to  the  aide-major  of  police,  and  Josephine 
was  led  away  by  two  of  the  gray-coats. 


398  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

That  same  night,  very  late,  a  French  hairdresser 
settled  in  Moscow,  who  was  crossing  the  Smith's 
Bridge  on  his  way  home,  was  fortunate  enough  to 
rescue  a  woman,  who,  without  bonnet  or  shawl,  was 
standing  on  the  parapet  of  the  bridge,  and  was  just 
about  to  cast  herself  into  the  Moskva.  There  was, 
luckily,  no  Boutotsnik,  or  watchman,  near,  or  it 
would  have  fared  ill  with  both  preserver  and  pre- 
served. The  kindly  barber  took  this  miserable  crea- 
ture, who  could  do  nothing  but  sob  and  wail,  and 
ejaculate,  "  O  Mother,  Mother!" — he  took  her  to  his 
home,  and  delivering  her  to  his  womankind,  enjoined 
them  to  treat  her  with  every  care  and  solicitude. 
They  told  him,  the  next  morning,  that  when  they 
came  to  undress  her,  they  had  found  her  from  the 
shoulder  to  the  waist  one  mass  of  bloody  wheals. 
The  police  had  simply  done  their  infamous  duty. 
The  milliner,  her  mistress,  had  a  perfect  right  to 
order  her  to  be  flogged ;  she  had  paid  for  the  flog- 
ging ;  and  the  police  had  nothing  further  to  do,  save 
to  inflict.  The  unhappy  creature  had  been  beaten 
with  rods,  (willow  canes  split  each  into  three,)  and  in 
the  frenzy  of  her  agony  and  shame  had  immediately 
after  her  liberation  from  the  police-den  of  torture, 
rushed  to  the  river  with  the  intention  of  committing 
suicide. 

The  hairdresser,  than  whom  a  kinder-hearted 
seizer  of  ringlets  never  existed,  would  not  allow  this 
poor  waif  and  stray  to  depart  out  of  his  house. 
Learning  by  degrees  her  unhappy  story,  he  offered 
her  an  asylum,  and  treated  her  as  one  of  his  own 
children.  She  went  on  improving  for  a  time ;  but 


MUSIC   AND  THE   DRAMA.  399 

by  degrees  she  fell  into  a  sable  melancholy.     When 
I  saw  her,  she  had  been  mad  for  eighteen  months. 

I  have  done,  now,  for  very  sickness,  with  the  judi- 
cial police.  I  have  heard  some  curious  tales,  in 
my  time,  about  the  Austrian  police,  and  about  the 
Neapolitan  police,  which  all  plain  men  know  to  be 
intolerably  abominable.  The  employes  of  the  Rue 
de  Jerusalem  are  not  wholly  immaculate,  I  believe  ; 
nay,  under  our  honest,  hard-working,  plain-sailing, 
Scotland  Yard  regime,  we  have  had  policemen  who 
have  stolen  geese,  and  others  who  have  broken  into 
houses.  But,  as  grand  masters  of  the  art  and  mys- 
tery of  villany  ;  as  proficients  in  lying,  stealing, 
cruelty,  rapacity,  and  impudence ;  I  will  back  the 
Russian  police  against  the  whole  world  of  knavery. 


XVIII. 
MUSIC  AND   THE   DRAMA. 

I  HAVE  in  my  possession  a  square  piece  of  yellow 
paper,  highly  varnished,  and  with  one  corner  torn 
off,  on  which  there  is  the  ordinary  amount  of  typo- 
graphical Abracadabra,  or  Russian  word-spinning, 
inevitably  to  be  found  in  all  Russian  documents  ; 
namely,  as  much  as  can  possibly  be  squeezed  into 
the  space  available,  and  headed  (it  is  almost  super- 
fluous to  remark)  by  a  portrait  en  pied  of  that  mon- 


400  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

ster  Bird,  that  Roc  of  Russia,  and  yet  decided  oppo- 
site to  a  Rara  Avis,  the  double-headed  Eagle.  This 
document  is  as  large  as  one  of  those  French  sched- 
ules of  insolvency,  a  Reconnaissance  of  the  Mont  de 
Piete*,  and  is  considerably  bigger  than  an  English 
excise  permit.  It  is,  in  reality,  no  such  formidable 
affair ;  but  simply  a  pass  check  (something  billiet  in 
Russ)  to  the  orchestra  stalls  of  the  Gossudaria- 
Tchirk-Teatr,'  or  Imperial  Circus  Theatre  of  St. 
Petersburg. 

There  never  was,  under  Jove — with  the  exception 
of  the  Mandarinized  inhabitants  of  the  Flowery 
Land,  who,  in  a  thousand  respects,  might  run  or  be 
driven  in  couples  with  the  Muscovites — such  a  na- 
tion of  filling  up  formalists  as  are  the  Russians.  In 
Russia,  indeed,  can  you  appreciate  in  its  highest 
degree  the  inestimable  benefits  of  a  lot  of  forms. 
The  Russian  five-copeck  (twopenny-halfpenny)  post- 
age-stamp is  as  important-looking,  as  far  as  fierce- 
ness and  circumference  go,  as  that  foul  mass  of 
decayed  rosin  and  wax,  symbolizing  rottenness  and 
corruption  somewhere,  whilom  attached,  in  a  species 
of  shallow  pill-box,  at  the  end  of  a  string  to  a  patent, 
and  called  the  Great  Seal  of  England.  If,  in  St. 
Petersburg  or  Moscow,  you  wish  to  post  a  letter  for 
foreign  parts,  and  send  your  servant  with  it  to  the 
Gossudaria-Pochta,  or  Imperial  post,  he  brings  you 
back  an  immense  pancake,  like  a  Surrey  Garden's 
posting  bill,  with  your  name,  and  your  correspond- 
ent's name,  and  columns  of  figures,  denoting  the. 
amount  of  copecks  charged  for  postage,  and  the  date, 
and  signatures,  and  countersignatures,  and  a  big 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DBAMA.  401 

double  eagle,  in  black,  at  the  top,  and  a  smaller  one 
in  blue  at  the  bottom,  and  a  great  sprawling  white 
one  in  the  water-mark,  besides  the  usual  didactic 
essay  upon  things  in  general  in  incomprehensible 
Russ ;  all  which  cautious,  minute,  and  business-like 
formalities  do  not  prevent  the  frequent  failure  to 
reach  its  destination  of  your  letter,  and  its  as  fre- 
quent seal-breaking  and  spying-into  by  officials  in 
its  transit  through  the  post-office. 

Petropolis,  considering  its  enormous  size,  has  by 
no  means  a  profusion  of  theatres.  There  is  the 
superb  Balschoi'-Teatr' ;  the  Grand  Opera,  where 
Grisi  and  Mario  sing,  and  Cerito  and  Bagdanoff 
dance.  The  Great  Theatre  was  originally  erected  by 
Semiramis- Catherine ;  then  reconstructed  in  eigh- 
teen hundred  and  three,  and  in  the  reign  of  the  first 
Alexander,  by  the  architect  Thomon.  It  was  burnt 
down,  according  to  the  rule  of  the  Three  Fates,  in 
all  theatrical  cases  made  and  provided,  in  eighteen 
hundred  and  eleven ;  when  another  French  architect, 
M.  Mauduit,  was  intrusted  with  the  task  of  acting  as 
a  vicarious  phrenix,  and  raising  the  theatre  from  its 
ashes.  Some  acoustic  defects  having  been  found, 
nevertheless,  to  exist  in  the  new  edifice,  the  Czar 
Nicholas  caused  M.  Cavos,  again  a  Frenchman,  to 
turn  it  as  completely  inside  out,  as  our  old  Covent 
Garden  was  turned  by  Mr.  Albano.  It  is  now,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Grand  Theatre  at  Moscow,  the 
most  magnificent  and  the  most  convenient  of  all  the 
theatres  in  Europe,  and  (I  believe)  as  large  a  theatre 
as  any.  The  Scala  may  surpass  it,  slightly,  in  size 
but  in  splendour  of  appointment  it  is,  so  the  cos- 


402  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

mopolite  operatics  say,  a  mere  penny  gaff  to  the 
Balschoi.  At  the  Grand  Theatre,  take  place,  during 
the  carnival,  the  famous  Bal  Masques  of  St.  Peters- 
burg. 

Next,  the  northern  capital  possesses  the  Alexandra 
Theatre,  situated  in  the  place,  or  square,  as  the  gal- 
licized  Russians  call  it,  which  bears  the  same  name, 
and  opens  on  the  Nevskoi  Perspective.  The  Alex- 
andra Theatre  is  the  home  of  the  Russian  drama ; 
that  is,  purely  Russian  plays  (on  purely  Russian 
subjects)  are  there  performed.  Thirdly,  there  is  the 
Theatre  Michel,  in  the  Place  Michel,  also  on  the 
Nevskoi,  built  in  eighteen  hundred  and  thirty-three, 
under  the  direction  of  M.  Bruloff;  which  elegant  and 
aristocratic  dramatic  temple  may  be  called  the  St. 
James's  Theatre  of  St.  Petersburg,  being  devoted  to 
the  alternate  performances  of  French  and  German 
troupes,  and — being  closed  a  good  many  months  in 
the  year.  There  is  a  fourth  and  very  pretty  theatre, 
built  of  wood,  in  the  island  of  Kammenoi-Ostrow, 
or  Stone  Island,  (so  called  from  a  huge  mass  of 
stone  on  its  banks  in  the  Little  Nevka,)  a  Swiss  cot- 
tage kind  of  affair  embosomed  among  trees,  and 
which  stands  in  front  of  the  bridge  leading  to  the 
island  of  Yelaguine.  In  this  theatrical  chalet,  the 
French  vaudeville  company  give  representations  dur- 
ing the  summer ;  the  islands  at  that  season  being 
crammed  with  the  elite  of  the  aristocratic  Peters- 
burgian  society — at  least  of  that  numerous  section 
thereof  who  can't  afford,  or  who  can't  obtain  the 
government  permission  to  travel.  There  was  an- 
other and  extensive  theatre,  likewise  built  of  timber, 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DRAMA.  403 

on  Wassily-Ostrow;  but,  it  was  burnt  down  some 
years  since,  and  being  a  simply  German  theatre  was 
allowed,  contemptuously,  to  sink  into  oblivion,  and 
was  never  rebuilt.  There  is  but  one,  and  the  fifth 
theatre,  that  remains  to  be  noticed,  and  that  is  the 
Tchirk,  or  Circus  Theatre,  and  thither,  if  you  please, 
we  will  pay  a  visit  this  night. 

This  is  not  by  any  means  the  first  theatre  I  have 
visited  since  I  have  been  biting  the  dust  of  Peters- 
burg. I  have  been  to  the  German  house,  at  the 
pressing  recommendation  of  Barnabay,  backed  by 
ZacharaV,  and  have  seen  a  German  farce,  of  which 
I  have  understood  very  little,  if  any  thing ;  but  from 
which  I  have  come  away  screaming  with  laughter. 
It  was  called  Der  Todte  Neffe,  (the  Dead  Nephew,) 
and  was  from  the  pen  of  that  dramatic  writer  who 
has  made  me  have  recourse  to  my  knuckles  (I  was 
ashamed  to  use  my  pocket-handkerchief)  many  and 
many  a  time  in  that  stupid,  delightful,  unnatural, 
life-like,  tedious,  enthralling,  ridiculous,  sublime, 
worthless,  and  priceless  drama  of  the  Stranger — I 
mean  Herr  von  Kotzebue.  Why  is  it,  I  wonder, 
that  so  many  men  who  know  this  play  to  be  one 
of  the  worst  that  ever  was  written,  that  it  is  as 
much  an  insult  to  art  as  to  common  sense,  yet  in  a 
secret,  furtive  manner,  love  to  see  it,  and  had  they 
the  privilege  of  a  bespeak — as  the  mayor  and  the 
regimental-colonel  have  in  a  garrison  town — would 
command  it  for  that  night  only !  I  do  not  care 
one  doit  for  the  sorrows  of  Miss  Clarissa  Harlowe : 
shamefully  as  Mr.  Lovelace  behaved  to  her.  I  have 
not  the  slightest  sympathy  with  Miss  Pamela  An- 


404  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

drews's  virtue  or  its  reward,  and  declare  that  on  my 
conscience  I  believe  her  to  have  been  an  artful  and 

designing  jade,  who  had  her  eye  on  Squire  B 

from  the  commencement,  and  caught  him  at  last 
with  a  hook.  I  think  that  Mademoiselle  Virginie 
lost  her  life  through  a  ridiculous  piece  of  mock 
modesty,  and  that  she  would  have  bored  Paul 
awfully  had  she  been  married  to  him.  I  am  of 
opinion  that  six  months  with  hard  labour  in  the 
House  of  Correction  would  have  done  Manon  Les- 
caut  all  the  good  in  the  world.  For  me,  Werter 
may  go  on  blowing  out  his  batter-pudding  brains, 
and  Charlotte  may  continue  cutting  butter-brods, 
and  wiping  the  little  noses^of  her  little  brothers  and 
sisters,  to  infinity.  I  have  no  tears  for  any  of  these 
sentimentalities ;  but,  for  that  bad  English  version 
of  a  worse  German  Play — the  Stranger — I  have 
always  an  abashed  love  and  a  shy  reverence,  and 
an  unwearied  patience.  I  can  always  bear  with 
Peter,  and  his  papa  with  the  cane,  and  the  countess 
who  comes  off  a  journey  in  a  hat  and  feathers  and  a 
green  velvet  pelisse,  and  Miss  Adelaide  Haller  the 
housekeeper,  and  that  melancholy  dingy  'man  in 
black  who  has  fixed  upon  Cassel  for  his  abode.  I 
don't  tell  people  that  I  am  going  to  see  the  Stranger; 
but  I  go,  and  come  home  quite  placid,  and  for  the 
time  moral,  and  full  of  good  thoughts  and  quiet 
emotions.  For  who  amongst  us  has  not  done  a 
wrong,  but  repents  in  secret  places  where  vanity 
is  of  no  avail,  and  where  there  are  none  to  tell  him 
that  he  is  in  the  right,  and  that  he  "  oughtn't  to 
stand  it,  my  boy  ?  "  And  who  has  not  been  wronged, 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DRAMA.  405 

that  but  seeks  solace  in  sowing  forgiveness  broad- 
cast, because  he  thinks  the  tares  in  that  one  place 
where  forgiveness  is  most  needed  are  too  thick  for 
any  good  seed  to  bear  fruit  there  ?  And  who  has 
lost  a  lamb,  and  wandering  about  seeking  it,  can 
refrain  from  pleasant  thinkings  when  he  comes  upon 
a  flock,  though  his  firstling  be  not  among  them,  and 
can  stay  himself  from  interest  and  cheerful  imagin- 
ings in  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  little  children  ?  That 
Italian  songstress  who  sings  so  magnificently,  in 
which  is  she  greater:  in  the  "  Qual  cor  tradisti" 
where  she  pours  out  the  vials  of  a  woman's  resent- 
ment and  vindictiveness  upon  that  contemptible  cur 
in  the  helmet,  Pollio  ;  or  in  the  duet  with  Adalgisa, 
where  the  children  are  ?  I  saw  the  other  night,  in 
the  pit  of  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  during  the  per- 
formance of  a  pantomime,  for  which  Mr.  Buckstone 
had  provided  the  fun,  and  Mr.  William  Calcott  had 
painted  the  pictures — the  "  Babes  in  the  Wood  " — 
I  saw  a  great,  burly,  red-faced  man  in  a  shaggy 
great-coat  and  a  wide-awake  hat,  who  looked  very 
much  like  a  commercial  traveller  for  a  Bradford 
cloth-house,  blubbering — that  is  simply  the  word — 
at  a  superbly  ridiculous  part  of  the  entertainment, 
where  the  Robins  (represented  by  half-a-dozen  stal- 
wart "  supers "  in  bird  masks  and  red  waistcoats, 
like  parish  beadles)  come  capering  in,  and  after  an 
absurd  jig  to  the  scraping  of  some  fiddles,  cover  up 
the  babes  who  have  been  abandoned  by  their  cruel 
uncle,  with  green  leaves.  And  the  Stranger  will  be 
popular  to  the  end  of  time — as  popular  'as  the  Nor- 
folk tragedy — because  it  is  about  forgiveness,  and 


406  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

love,  and  mercy,  and  children ;  and  here  is  the  health 
of  Herr  von  Kotzebue,  though  he  was  a  poor  writer, 
and  (I  have  heard  it  whispered)  a  government  spy. 

The  week  I  arrived  in  Petersburg  was  the  last  of 
the  season  of  the  Grand  Opera  ;  and  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  enjoying  some  toe-pointed  stanzas  of 
the  poetry  of  motion  as  rendered  by  the  agile  limbs 
of  the  renowned  Russian  dancer,  Mademoiselle  Bag- 
danoff.  The  Russians  are  deliriously  proud  of  this 
favoured  child  of  Terpsichore.  The  government 
will  not  allow  her  to  dance,  even  out  of  the  Grand 
Opera  season,  on  any  stage  in  the  empire,  save 
those  of  the  two  great  theatres  in  Petersburg  and 
Moscow,  where  the  prices  are  high,  the  audience 
aristocratically  cold,  aristocratically  blase  and  ennuye, 
and  aristocratically  broken-in  to  the  laws  of  Western 
aristocratic  etiquette.  For,  were  the  Bagdanoff  to 
dance  at  a  native  Russian  theatre,  the  audience 
would  infallibly  encore  her  at  least  eight  times  after 
every  pas  ;  and  the  poor  child  would  be  danced  off 
her  legs.  The  Russians  affect  to  sneer  at  Cerito 
and  Rosati,  and  Fanny  Ellsler ;  they  only  conde- 
scend to  admit  Taglioni  to  have  been  incomparable 
because  she  has  retired  from  the  stage,  and  has  mar- 
ried a  Russian  prince.  Plunket,  Fleury,  Fusco, 
Guy-Stephan,  they  will  not  have  at  any  price. 
The  Bagdanoff  is  their  Alpha  and  Omega  as  a 
dancer.  Last  spring  she  was  more  the  rage  than 
ever.  Her  portrait,  lithographed,  was  in  all  the 
printsellers'  windows,  with  a  sprawling  autograph 
at  the  base,  and  a  German  epigraph  at  the  summit : 
— "  In  lebe  immer  die  selbe"  "  In  love  always  the 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DRAMA.  407 

same."  I  don't  know  why ;  but  this  motto  always 
gave  me  an  idea  of  an  implied  defiance  or  implied 
guarantee.  It  seems  to  say :  "  Advance,  ye  Crimean 
field-marshals,  ye  Caucasian  generals,  ye  aids-de- 
camp of  the  Emperor,  ye  members  of  the  directing 
senate,  ye  attache's  of  foreign  legations.  Don't  be 
afraid !  Approach  and  place  your  diamond  brace- 
lets, your  bouquets  with  a  bank-note  for  a  thousand 
roubles  twisted  round  the  stem,  your  elegant  coupe's 
with  coal-black  horses,  your  five-hundred-rouble  sable 
pelisses,  at  the  feet  of  Nadiejda  Bagdanoff.  Walk 
up.  There  is  no  deception.  In  love  she  is  always 
the  same."  I  saw  Mademoiselle  Bagdanoff,  and 
didn't  like  her.  Have  I  not  seen  Her  (with  a  large 
H)  dance  ?  She  flung  her  limbs  about  a  great  deal ; 
and  in  dancing,  as  in  love,  she  was  immer  die  selbe 
— always  the  same.  It  afterwards  fell  out  that  from 
the  fumes  of  that  great  witch's  caldron  of  Russian 
gossip,  the  Samovar,  I  distilled  a  somewhat  curious 
reason  for  the  immense  popularity  of  the  Bagdanoff. 
The  imperial  government  granted  her  a  ticket  of 
leave,  or  passport  for  foreign  travel,  just  before  the 
war  with  the  allied  powers  broke  out.  Nadiejda 
went  abroad,  remained  two  years,  and  came  back 
at  last,  radiant,  as  Mademoiselle  Bagdanoff,  of  the 
Academic  Impe'riale  de  Musique  at  Paris.  She  had 
stormed  the  Rue  Lepelletier ;  she  had  subdued  the 
Parisians ;  she  had  vanquished  the  stubborn  hearts 
and  claque-compelling  white-gloved  palms  of  those 
formidable  three  first  rows  of  fauteuils  d'orchestre, 
courted  and  dreaded  by  all  cantatrice,  by  all  balle- 
rine.  In  a  word  she  had  triumphed;  but  it  was 


408  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

never  exactly  ascertained  in  what  ballet  she  made 
her  d^but.  It  was  certain,  however,  that  she  had 
been  engaged  at  the  Academic,  and  that  her  engage- 
ment had  been  rescinded  during  the  war  time  ;  the 
manager  having,  with  fiendish  ingenuity,  endeav- 
oured to  seduce  her  into  dancing  in  a  ballet  whose 
plot  was  inimical  to  Russian  interests.  But,  the 
fair  Nadiejda,  patriotic  as  fearless,  indignantly  re- 
fused to  betray  her  country  and  her  Czar.  She  tore 
her  engagement  into  pieces ;  she  stamped  upon  it ; 
she  gave  the  directors  of  the  Academic  Imperiale  a 
piece  of  her  mind  :  she  demanded  her  passports,  and 
danced  back  to  St.  Petersburg — there  to  be  feted, 
and  caressed,  and  braceleted,  and  ear-ringed,  and 
bouqueted,  and  reengaged  at  the  Balschoi  Teatr' 
at  a  higher  salary ;  and,  by  Jupiter !  were  she  not 
lucky  enough  to  be  a  crown  serf,  instead  of  a  slave 
at  obrok,  to  be  sent  back  to  her  proprietor's  village 
whenever  he  was  so  minded,  there  to  be  made  to 
dance  her  best  pas  seuls  for  her  noble  proprietor's 
amusement,  when  he  and  his  guests  were  drunk 
with  wine  ;  there,  if  she  offended  him,  to  be  sent  to 
hew  wood  and  draw  water,  to  go  clad  in  gray  sack- 
ing, instead  of  gauze  and  silk,  and  spangles ;  to  have 
those  tresses  shorn  away,  whereon  the  diamond 
sprays  glittered  so  bravely  now ;  to  be  beaten  with 
rods  when  her  master  was  in  a  bad  temper,  and 
compelled  unmurmuringly  to  pick  up  the  handker- 
chief he  designed  to  throw  her  when  amiably  dis- 
posed. 

If  the  Bagdanoff  deserved  the  gold  medal,  which 
I  believe  was  awarded  to  her  by  the  government  for 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DRAMA.  409 

the  Spartan  fortitude  with  which  she  had  withstood 
the  insidious  promptings  of  the  malevolent  Fran- 
soutz,  she  was  certainly  entitled  to  the  medal  of  St. 
Anne  of  the  first  class,  set  in  brilliants  of  the  finest 
water,  for  the  heroism  she  displayed  in  coming  back 
to  Russia  at  all.  The  return  of  Regulus  to  Car- 
thage was  nothing  to  it.  Shiningly,  indeed,  does 
her  self-denying  conduct  contrast  with  that  of  the 
other  (vocal)  operatic  star,  M.  IVANHOFF,  who,  being 
a  slave,  and  a  pupil  of  the  Imperial  Vocal  Acad- 
emy, and  possessing  a  remarkably  fine  voice,  was 
commanded  by  the  Czar  to  repair  to  Italy,  there  to 
perfect  himself  in  the  art  of  singing,  and  then  to 
return  to  Petersburg,  to  delight  the  habitues  of  the 
Balschoi'  Teatr'  with  his  dulcet  strains.  The  faith- 
less Ivanhoff  went,  and  saw,  and  conquered  all  the 
difficulties  of  his  art;  BUT  HE  NEVER  CAME  BACK 
AGAIN  :  withstanding,  with  an  inflexible  pertinacity, 
the  instances  of  ambassadors  and  the  commands  of 
ministers.  "  Well  oat  of  it,"  thought  M.  Ivanhoff; 
and  betook  himself  to  making  money  for  himself 
with  admirable  sprightliness  and  energy.  He  made 
a  fortune ;  retired  from  the  stage  ;  bought  an  estate ; 
and  was  ungrateful  enough  to  live  and  enjoy  him- 
self thereupon,  utterly  unmindful  of  his  kind  friends 
in  Russia,  who  were  anxious  that  he  should  return, 
and  to  assure  him  that  the  past  should  be  forgotten, 
that  his  wishes  should  be  fully  met,  and  that  the 
warmest  of  receptions  awaited  him. 

I  cannot  tell  the  title  of  the  ballet  whose  subject 
the  Bagdanoff  considered  inimical  to  Russian  inter- 
ests ;  but  there  are  very  many  dramatic  and  oper- 

18 


410  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

atic  performances  that  lie  under  the  ban  of  the 
Muscovite  Boguey,  on  the  inimical  plea.  M.  Scribe's 
vaudeville  of  the  Verre  d'Eau  is  proscribed  in  Rus- 
sia. Rossini's  William  Tell,  has,  of  course,  never 
been  heard  there  in  public.  The  Etoile  du  Nord 
achieved  an  immense  success ;  but  as  there  were 
some  inconvenient  little  matters  in  the  libretto  about 
Peter  the  Great's  madness  and  drunkenness,  the 
title  was  quietly  metamorphosed  into  Charles  the 
Twelfth.  So  with  numerous  dramas  and  operas 
with  inconvenient  titles  or  inconvenient  incidents. 
Have  any  of  my  readers  ever  heard  of  an  opera, 
usually  considered  to  be  the  chef  cPcsuvre  of  Auber, 
in  which  there  is  a  market  chorus,  and  a  tumult,  and 
a  dumb  girl,  and  an  insurgent  fisherman  riding  on  a 
horse  from  the  circus  ?  That  dear  old  round-nosed, 
meek-eyed  white  horse,  that  seems  to  be  the  only 
operatic  horse  in  the  world,  for  he  is  himself  alone 
his  parallel,  and  nought  else  could  be  it,  in  any 
country  I  have  visited : — a  patient  horse,  bearing 
burly  baritones,  or  timid  tenors,  or  prima  donnas, 
inclined  to  embonpoint,  with  equal  resignation ;  a 
safe  horse,  never  shying  at  the  noise  of  the  big  drum, 
never  kicking  out  at  the  supers,  and,  above  all, 
never,  as  I  am  always  afraid  he  will,  inclining  his 
body  from  his  centre  of  gravity  at  an  angle  of  sixty 
degrees,  and  setting  off  in  a  circular  canter  round 
the  stage  with  his  mane  and  tail  streaming  in  the 
opposite  direction,  till  brought  to  a  sense  of  his  not 
being  at  Franconi's  or  Astley's  by  a  deficiency  of 
whip,  and  an  absence  of  saw-dust,  and  a  sudden 
conviction  that  there  must  be  something  wrong,  as 


MUSIC  AND   THE  DRAMA.  "  411 

his  rider  is  sitting  on  his  back,  instead  of  standing 
thereupon  on  the  saddle  with  the  red  velvet  table- 
cloth, and  is  uttering  shrieks  of  terror,  instead  of 
encouraging  cries  of  "  Houp  la ! "  There  is  a  gen- 
eral blow-up  and  eruption  of  volcanoes  at  the  end  of 
this  opera,  and  it  is  known,  unless  I  am  very  much 
mistaken,  by  the  name  of  Masaniello.  They  play 
it  in  Russia ;  but,  by  some  means  or  other,  the  tu- 
mult, the  market  scene,  and  the  insurgent  fisherman, 
have  all  disappeared;  there  is  nothing  left  but  the 
dumb  girl,  and  the  beautiful  music,  and  the  blow-up ; 
and  the  opera  is  called  Fenella.  The  other  elements 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  name  of  that  bold  rebel :  oh, 
scour  me  the  Chiaja  and  turn  up  the  sleepers  at  Na- 
ples' street-corners,  for  another  MASANIELLO  ;  for  we 
live  in  evil  days,  and  the  paralytic  remnants  of  the 
Holy  Alliance  are  crying  out  to  be  knocked  down 
and  jumped  upon,  and  thrown  out  of  window,  and 
put  out  of  their  pain  as  soon  as  possible) — those 
revolutionary  elements  would  suggest  allusions,  and 
those  allusions  might  be  inimical  to  Russian  interests. 
There  was  a  little  bird  in  Petersburg,  in  these  lat- 
ter days  of  mine,  who  went  about  whispering  (very 
cautiously  and  low,  for  if  that  big  bird,  the  Double 
Eagle,  had  been  aware  of  him,  he  would  have 
stopped  his  whispering  for  good)  that  there  was 
another  reason  for  the  Bagdanoff's  secession  from 
the  Academic  at  Paris.  The  French,  this  little  bird 
said,  quite  confidently,  though  quietly — the  French 
wouldn't  have  her !  She  had  rehearsed,  and  the 
minister  of  state  had  shaken  his  head.  The  Jockey 
Club  had  presented  a  petition  against  her.  The 


412  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

abonnes  had  drawn  up  a  memorial  against  her. 
They  considered  her  to  be  inimical  to  French  inter- 
ests. Two  feuilletonistes  of  the  highest  celebrity  and 
social  position  had  declared  publicly  that  they  would 
decline  and  return  the  retaining  fee,  sent  by  debu- 
tantes and  accepted  by  feuilletonistes,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  in  such  cases.  In  fact,  the  Bagdanoff  was 
crevee  before  she  ever  saw  the  French  foot-lights 
twinkle,  and  if  she  had  not  pirouetted  away  Due 
North  as  fast  as  her  ten  toes  would  permit  her,  she 
would  in  another  week  have  been  caricatured  in  the 
Journal  pour  Rire — figuration  in  which  formidable 
journal  is  equivalent  to  civil  death  on  the  Continent. 

All  of  which  minor  gossip  on  things  theatrical 
and  operatic  you  may  imagine,  if  you  like,  to  have 
been  useful  to  wile  away  the  time  this  hot  afternoon. 
Signor  Fripanelli  and  I  have  been  dining  at  Mad- 
ame Aubin's  French  table  d'hote  at  the  corner  of 
the  Cannouschma  or  Great  Stable  Street;  and 
have  agreed  to  visit  the  Circus  Theatre  in  the  even- 
ing to  see  Lucrezia  Borgia,  the  opera :  music  by 
the  usual  Donizetti,  but  words  translated  into  Russ. 
I  anticipated  a  most  awful  evening  of  maxillary- 
bones-breaking  sounds.  Fancy  "  Di  pescatore  igno- 
bile  "  in  Slavonic ! 

Fripanelli  and  yours  truly  have  proceeded,  dinner 
being  over,  to  Dominique's  cafe  on  the  Nevskoi, 
there  to  do  the  usual  coffee  and  chasse ;  and  at  the 
door  of  that  dreary  and  expensive  imitation  of  Big- 
non's  or  Richards's  stands  the  Signor's  droschky, 
(for  Frip  is  a  prosperous  gentleman ;  gives  you,  at 
his  own  rooms,  as  good  Lafitte  as  you  can  obtain 


MUSIC   AND   THE   DRAMA.  413 

on  this  side  Tilsit ;  and  has  a  private  droschky  to 
himself,  neat,  shining  lamps,  tall  horse,  and  coach- 
man in  a  full  suit  of  India-rubber.)  "  One  mast 
'ave,  oun  po  di  louxe,"  a  little  luxury,  the  Signer 
tells  me,  as  if  to  apologize  for  his  turn  out.  "  If  I 
vas  drive  op  ze  Princesse  Kapoustikoff  vith  Ischvost- 
chik,  sapete,  fifty  copeck,  zay  would  take  too  rouble 
from  my  next  lesson.  Ah  !  quel  pays  !  quel  pays  !  " 
"  Imagine  yourself,"  (to  translate  his  polyglot  into 
something  approximating  to  English,)  he  tells  me  as 
we  sip  the  refreshing  Mocha  and  puff  at  the  papiros. 
— "  Imagine  yourself,  I  go  to  the  Countess  Panck- 
schka.  She  receive  me  how  ?  As  the  maestro  di 
canto  ?  Of  none.  I  sit  at  the  piano-forte,  and 
open  the  book  and  wait  to  hear  that  woman  sing 
false  as  water,  that  which  always  she  do.  Is  it  that 
she  sing?  Of  none.  She  sits  and  makes  little 
plaits  in  her  robe,  and  spins  little  gold  toys,  and 
says,  Signor  Fripanelli,  what  is  there  of  news  en 
ville.  Tell  me,  I  pray  you,  all  the  cancans  you 
heard  last  night  at  the  Princess  Kapoustikoff's. 
What,  devil !  I  go  to-morrow  to  the  Kapoustikoff s, 
and  she  says,  Tell  me,  Signor  of  mine,  what  is  there 
of  new  en  ville,  and  who  are  the  imbecile  whom 
that  old  woman,  ugly,  the  Countess  Panckschka, 
can  now  persuade  to  enter  her  faded  saloons.  Deity 
of  mine,  this  they  call  taking  lessons  of  the  song ! 
And  if  you  do  not  talk  cancans ;  if  you  say  that 
you  are  a  master  of  music,  and  not  a  merchant  of 
news  ;  they  will  write  to  you  a  billet  with  but  this 
sole  line  in  it,  Monsieur,  je  ne  vous  connais  plus,  Sir, 
I  know  you  no  longer ;  and  no  longer  will  they  know 


414  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

you,  or  the  two,  five,  eight  hundred  roubles  they  owe 
you,  besides  their  bad  tongues,  ruining  your  fame 
and  honour  in  salons  with  histories  of  lies  that  you 
know  not  your  art ;  that  you  are  of  the  Jew,  and 
have  been  g-alerian,  Id  has,  down  there  with  letters 
marked  on  your  back  for  theft  of  watches  from 
mantelpiece,  and  have  wife  without  bread  in  Ber- 
gamo, whom  in  the  time  you  bastinadoed  because 
she  would  not  dance  on  the  cord,"  (the  tight-rope,  I 
presume.) 

The  recital  of  Fripanelli's  woes  carries  us  well  out 
of  Dominique's,  and  his  droschky  takes  us  at  an 
enlivening  rate  towards  the  theatre.  Frip  has  been 
years  in  Petersburg,  yet  I  question  whether  he  has 
ever  walked  ten  miles  in  it  since  his  arrival. 
"  What  to  do  ?  "  he  asks,  lifting  up  his  hands,  and 
shrugging  up  his  shoulders.  "  To  walk,  where  ? 
Among  these  wild  men  savage,  these  barbarous  ? 
Of  not."  He  knows  the  Nevsko'i,  the  Italianskai'a, 
the  English  and  Palace  Quays,  the  two  Morskaia's 
and  the  Litennaia,  because  in  those  streets  his  aris- 
tocratic patrons  reside.  He  has  heard  of  Wassily- 
Ostrow,  and  has  been  (in  a  gondola)  to  Kammenoi'- 
Ostrow,  the  Princess  or  the  Countess  Panckschka 
having  a  chalet  there  in  the  summer  ;  also  to  Tsar- 
ski- Selo,  and  even  as  far  as  Pavlowsk  by  railway, 
for  he  gives  lessons  to  one  of  the  Grand-Duchesses. 
He  has  seen  the  outside  of  the  Gostinnoi-dvor ;  but 
he  is  quite  ignorant  of  what  manner  of  markets 
exist  behind  that  stately  edifice.  He  knows  not 
the  Gorokhovaia  from  Adam ;  and  if  you  were  to 
tell  him  that  the  Nevsko'i  started  from  the  shores  of 


MUSIC    AND    THE   DRAMA.  415 

the  Neva,  at  right-angles  to  it,  and  ended  three 
miles  off,  still  on  the  shores  of  the  Neva,  and  still  at 
right-angles  thereto,  he  would  stare  with  aston- 
ishment.* I  could  show  you  full  a  score  of  foreign 
residents  in  Petersburg  who  are  brethren  in  igno- 
rance to  Fripanelli,  and  have  been  as  long  in  Rus- 
sia, and  know  as  little  of  it  as  he. 

This  good-natured  little  music-master  is  madly 
in  love  with  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  He  is  most 
respectful  and  quite  hopeless  in  his  attachment, 
never  telling  his  love  to  its  object,  but  allowing 
concealment  to  prey  on  his  olive  cheek.  Watching 
him,  however,  at  his  music  lessons,  while  the  Queen 
is  singing  (and  she  sings  divinely),  I  catch  him 
furtively  wiping  his  right  eyelid  with  the  extreme 
end  of  a  very  fine  cambric  handkerchief.  He  com- 
poses romances  and  cavatinas  for  the  Queen  to  sing, 
which,  when  she  sings,  makes  him  urticate  his  eye- 
lid more  than  ever.  He  weeps  frequently  to  me 
over  coffee  on  the  subject.  Elle  rfa  pas  de  Vdme. 
"  She  has  not  of  the  soul,"  he  says.  "  If  she  knew 
how  to  shed  the  tears  as  well  as  how  to  beam  the 
smiles,  she  would  be  la  Donna  of  the  world.  But 
she  cannot.  Elle  ria  pas  de  Vdme."  And  so  we  go 
to  the  Circus. 

*  Here  the  Neva  forms  an  arc  in  its  myriad  windings,  and  the 
Nevskoi  is  the  chord  of  the  arc.  The  difficulty  of  orienting  one's 
self  without  a  compass  in  Petersburg,  or  finding  out  whether  you 
are  steering  topographically,  is  positively  distracting.  Owing  to 
the  twistings  and  twinings  of  the  river,  the  innumerable  back 
waters,  branches,  canals,  and  bridges,  you  may  walk  five  miles 
and  still  find  yourself  over  against  where  you  started  from. 


416  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

Which,  beyond  being  externally  circular  in  form, 
(with  the  ordinary  quadrangular  excrescences  insep- 
arable from  round  buildings,)  and  having  been,  it 
may  be,  originally  built  with  a  vague  view  towards 
equestrian  performances  at  some  future  period,  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  horses.  For,  as  you 
already  know,  it  is  the  home  of  operas  sung  in 
Russ. 

We  heard  Lucrezia  Borgia,  and  I  confess  that  I 
was  most  agreeably  disappointed.  I  became  con- 
vinced that  the  epithet  "  soft-flowing  Russ "  is  one 
eminently  due  to  the  mother-tongue  of  our  late 
enemies.  It  is,  indeed,  for  vocal  purposes  a  most 
mellifluous  and  harmonious  language,  and,  for 
softness  and  euphony,  is  about  five  hundred  per 
cent,  more  suited  to  musical  requirements  than  the 
French  language.  As  to  its  superiority  over  our 
own  (for  singing)  I  at  once  and  candidly  admit  it. 
I  don't  think  that  from  my  due  northern  antece- 
dents, I  shall  be  accused  of  entertaining  any  very 
violent  Russian  sympathies,  or  that  I  shall  be  de- 
nounced as  an  emissary  of  the  Czar  in  disguise, 
when  I  appeal  to  all  linguists  to  bear  me  out  in  the 
assertion,  that  our  own  English  tongue  is  the  very 
worst  language  in  the  world  for  singing.  There  is 
an  incessant  hiss  in  the  pronunciation  which  is  as 
annoying  as  it  is  productive  of  cacophony ;  and  I 
would  sooner  hear  Lucrezia  half-a-dozen  times  over 
in  Russ  than  in  English.  As  to  the  opera  itself,  it 
was,  as  I  dare  say  it  is  all  the  world  over — at  the 
Scala,  the  Pergola,  and  the  Fenice ;  at  the  St. 
Charles  at  New  Orleans,  at  the  opera  in  Pera,  at 


TCHORNI  NAROD-:    (THE    BLACK   PEOPLE.)          417 

the  Tacon  theatre  in  Havana,  at  our  own  great 
houses,  or  in  country  theatres,  occupied  for  the 
nonce  by  some  peripatetic  opera  company — always 
beautiful,  glorious,  fresh,  and  one  which  shall  endure 
for  aye,  like  the  grand  old  marbles  of  those  who 
have  gone  before,  though  legions  of  Goths  and  Van- 
dals, though  myriads  of  Keemo  Kimos  and  My 
Mary  Anns  shall  have  desecrated  its  altars  and  pro- 
faned its  hearth. 


XIX. 

TCHORNI  NAROD:  (THE  BLACK  PEOPLE.) 

THE  Black  People  I  am  going  to  tell  about  are 
not  of  the  unhappy  race  of  Ham,  though  they  are 
intimately  connected  with,  and  are,  indeed,  the 
bone,  and  basis,  and  marrow  of,  the  Domestic  In- 
stitution of  the  Russian  empire.  The  Russians  (I 
feel  a  glow  of  pleasure  come  over  me  when  I  have 
any  thing  positively  favourable  to  say  of  them)  are 
entirely  free*  from  any  prejudice  against  negroes.  I 
think,  on  the  whole,  they  would  rather  have  Uncle 
Tom  made  Governor  of  Woronesch,  than  find  an 
individual  of  German  extraction  appointed  to  a 
clerkship  in  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.  The 
people's — the  Tchorni-Narods' — notion  concerning 
negroes  is  peculiar  and  preposterous,  but  harmless. 
They  call  them  Obeziania  monkeys ;  and,  perhaps, 

18* 


418  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

imagine  them  to  be  bipeds  of  the  genus  Simia,  who 
have  compromised  themselves  by  speaking,  and 
who,  as  a  natural  consequence  of  their  indiscretion, 
have  been  made  to  work,  like  any  other  inferior 
human  beings.  The  poet,  whom  his  countrymen 
delight  to  call  the  Byron  of  Russia,  was  the  lineal 
descendant  of  a  negro  slave,  purchased  by  Peter  the 
Great  when  very  young ;  he  was  sent  to  Paris  to  be 
educated,  and  afterwards  rose  to  high  command  in 
his  service.  Yet  he  never  suffered  any  discredit 
through  the  sable  complexion  of  his  great-grand- 
father. He  was  M.  de  Pouschkin ;  and  held  lands 
and  serfs,  and  fell  in  a  duel  with  a  Russian  noble. 
Had  he  been  born  in  a,  say,  less  despotic  country, 
that  damning  evidence  in  his  finger-nails  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  banish  him  from  every  table- 
d'hote,  from  every  railway  car,  and  from  every  place 
of  worship,  save  the  black  one  ;  and  to  place  him  in 
danger  of  a  cowhiding  if  he  presumed  to  walk  on  a 
public  promenade  with  a  white  woman.  Yet  the 
Russians  are  as  white  as  I  am — or  as  you  are. 

The  Tchorni  Narod  is  briefly  the  generic  name 
familiarly  given  to  the  great  popular  element  in 
Russia ;  the  Black  People  are  the  equivalents  for 
our  great  unwashed,  or  enlightened  public,  or  raffish 
mob,  or  free  and  independent  citizens,  or  swinish 
multitude,  or  the  masses,  or  the  lower  orders,  or 
whatsoever  else  you  choose  to  call  the  English 
people,  according  to  your  high  and  mighty  taste. 
The  Tchorni  Narod  is  the  people  that  enlists,  digs, 
delves,  cheers,  throws  brickbats,  takes  the  horses  of 
His  Serene  Excrescence  the  Grand  Duke  from  his 


TCHORNI  NAROD  :   (THE   BLACK   PEOPLE.)  419 

carriage,  and  draws  him  in  triumph  to  the  palace  ; 
tears  his  S.  E.  into  small  pieces  sometimes,  and 
carries  his  head  about  on  a  pole ;  is  drunken,  mad, 
vicious ;  prudishly  moral,  indignant,  indulgent,  en- 
thusiastic, icy  cold,  by  turns,  and,  for  a  short  time  ; 
that  surges  about  like  a  sea  and  has  its  ebb  and 
flow,  its  tempests  and  calms,  as  capriciously  as 
that  monster ;  that  brings  forth  pale  children,  and  is 
not  washed  nor  taught,  but  works,  and  is  beaten, 
and  soddens,  and  starves. 

How  many  weeks  have  these  journey-notes  been 
cast  on  the  waters  of  publicity,  and  how  little  have 
I  told  of  the  real  people  I  came  all  these  leagues  to 
observe,  and  study,  and  paint  in  words,  and  strive 
to  understand  and  distil  the  truth  from  !  The 
Ischvostchik  ;  the  Starosta  and  his  belongings  down 
at  that  gray  Russian  Dumbledowndeary  of  mine 
yonder ;  the  bearded  man  in  the  red  shirt  at  Heyde's ; 
and  a  moujik  I  have  caught  up  here  and  there, 
staring  in  at  a  shop  window ;  these  are  all  the  popu- 
lar Russian  types  I  have  as  yet  given.  Yet,  what 
should  I  myself  think  of  an  American,  or  a  French, 
or  a  German — or  to  speak  prospectively — of  a  New 
Zealand  traveller,  who  came  among  us,  English 
people,  to  depict  our  national  manners  and  customs, 
and  who  confined  himself  chiefly  to  sketches  of 
eccentric  foreigners  he  had  met  at  table-d'hotes  in 
Leicester  Squsre  or  Soho,  to  the  description  of  a 
Spanish  boarding-house  in  Finsbury,  a  German 
sugar-baker's  in  Whitechapel,  a  Chinese  crimp's  in 
Rotherhithe,  a  Lascar  beggar's  den  in  Referden 
Street,  an  Italian  organ-grinder  and  image  haunt  off 


420  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

Leather  Lane,  a  French  cafd  in  the  Haymarket,  the 
Portuguese  walk  on  'Change,  or  a  Parisian  ballet  at 
Her  Majesty's  theatre ; — leaving  out  all  the  real 
true-born  British  characteristics  of  London  ;  the 
cabmen,  prize-fighters,  oyster-women,  coster-mong- 
ers, jockeys,  crossing-sweepers,  policemen,  beggars, 
Quakers,  garotters,  Barclay  and  Perkins's  draymen, 
Argyle  gents,  compositors,  barristers,  apple-women, 
authors,  and  ticket-of-leave  men  ? 

I  know  that  my  intentions,  in  the  first  instance, 
were  conscientious.  "  Be  it  mine,"  I  said,  the  very 
first  night  I  lay  down  in  my  bed  in  the  family  vault 
at  Heyde's,  "  to  take  this  Russian  people,  and  spread 
it  out  between  sheets  of  paper  like  caviare  in  a  sand- 
wich for  the  million  at  home  to  digest  as  best  they 
may.  But,  dear  and  forbearing  reader,  /  couldn't 
find  the  people.  Over  sixty  millions  of  souls  does 
this  empire  contain ;  yet  types  of  character  are  not 
to  be  picked  up  at  the  rate  of  more  than  one  a  day, 
on  the  average. 

A  Russian  crowd  is  as  rare  a  thing  to  be  met 
with,  as  Johannisberg  at  a  second-rate  hotel,  or  a 
fine  day  in  Fleet  Street.  Moscow  coronations  do 
not  happen  every  day,  notwithstanding  that  stock 
story  told  of  Peter,  Alexander  I.,  Nicholas,  and  the 
present  sovereign,  as  well  of,  if  I  mistake  not,  our 
George  the  Fourth,  and  the  French  Charles  the 
Tenth,  of  the  enthusiastic  but  inconsequent  young 
lady,  who  was  so  delighted  with  the  Kremlin  solem- 
nities, that  she  begged  the  Czar  to  let  his  subjects 
have  another  coronation  as  soon  as  possible.  Popu- 
lar gatherings  are  studiously  discouraged  by  the 


TCHORNI  NAROD  :    (THE   BLACK  PEOPLE.)          421 

government.  The  moujiks  cry  Gossudar,  Gossudar ! 
(the  Lord,  the  Lord !)  when  the  Czar  comes  flying 
along  in  his  droschky ;  if  they  must  needs  be  near 
him,  they  crouch  down  bareheaded,  and  bite  the 
dust.  Islers,  the  Sommer-Garten,  the  Wauxhall, -at 
Pavlowsk,  and  the  gardens  of  Tsarski-Selo, — which, 
in  St.  Petersburg,  like  the  Sparrow-hills  and  the 
Hermitage  Gardens,  at  Moscow,  are  very  nearly  all 
the  places  of  out-door  public  reunion  in  the  two 
capitals, — are  tabooed  to  the  moujik  ;  dancing  al 
fresco  is  forbidden  ;  street  shows  are  forbidden ; 
street  bands  are  forbidden.  I  have  not  the  slight- 
est wish  to  be  suspected  of  pretending  to  polyglot 
attainments  ;  yet  such  a  suspicion  may  perhaps 
arise  from  the  names  drawn  from  different  lan- 
guages I  have  given  to  different  buildings  and 
things  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  Russian  name  for 
the  Sommer-Garten  is  (I  believe)  the  Dvorsovaia 
Sad,  yet  it  is  very  rarely  translated  into  French  as 
the  Jardin  d'Ete,  but  is  almost  invariably  spoken 
of  by  the  Russians  (when  speaking  Russ)  by  the 
German  appellation  of  Sommer-Garten.  Perhaps 
it  was  laid  out  by  a  German  Gardener.  Again  the 
Police-Bridge  is  scarcely  ever  called  by  its  Rus- 
sian name  (save  when  directing  an  Ischvostchik)  of 
the  Polineisky  Most,  but  is  accepted  and  Gallicised 
as  Le  Pont  de  Police.  Again,  I  never  heard  the 
English  Quay  (Angliskaia  Nabirejenaia  in  Russ)  so 
spoken  of  by  a  Russian,  even  when  speaking  Eng- 
lish,— it  is  always  Le  Quay  Anglais  ;  and,  lastly, 
Basil's  Island,  or  L'ile  de  Basile,  is  peremptorily 
restricted,  this  time,  to  its  Russian  name  of  Was- 


422  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

sily  Ostrow.  At  fires,  the  soldiers,  the  firemen,  and 
the  thieves  (a  fire  is  quite  a  government  affair  in 
Russia,  and  a  member  of  the  imperial  family,  if  not 
the  Czar  himself,  is  almost  always  present,)  form  a 
crowd  of  themselves  ;  and  the  moujiks  run  away  for 
fear  of  being  pressed  to  pump,  and  beaten  if  they  do 
not  pump  hard  enough.  When  there  is  a  crowd, 
you  may  be  certain  that  it  is  on  the  occasion  of  a 
national  holiday,  or  a  national  tumult, — for  this 
tightly  reined-in  country  enjoys  both  occasionally. 
There  are,  you  know,  the  Montagnes  Russes,  the 
Ice  Mountains  of  the  New  Year,  the  Blessing  of 
the  Neva's  Waters  ;  the  Katchelis  and  Shows  of 
the  Blinni  Week,  the  eggs  and  kissings  in  all  sorts 
of  rings  at  Easter.  At  other  times  there  are  not 
even  groups  to  stud  the  pavement  of  the  enormous 
Perspectives  and  Ploschads  ;  and  though  you  know 
St.  Petersburg  to  have  a  population  of  three-quar- 
ters of  a  million  inhabitants,  you  might  everywhere, 
save  in  the  Gostinnoi-dvors,  (where  there  is  no 
crowd,  but  a  continuous  stream  of  human  beings 
of  all  classes,)  fancy  yourself  in  a  howling  desert.  I 
had  a  balcony  once  on  the  Nevskoii,  and  could,  with 
my  blind  man's  holiday  eyes,  see  from  the  Anitch- 
koff  Bridge  to  the  Admiralty  clock  spire,  (of  course 
with  the  aid  of  a  good  opera-glass,)  which  is  at  least 
a  third  of  the  length  of  that  unrivalled  street.  I 
have  seen  it,  between  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  what  one  might  call — vehicles,  horses, 
and  a  few  regiments  of  cavalry  and  infantry  march- 
ing past,  being  taken  into  consideration — thronged  ; 
sable-spotted  as  a  turnpike  road  in  England  might 


TCHOKNI  NAROD  :  (THE  BLACK  PEOPLE.)    423 

be  by  half-a-dozen  anthills  slowly  disgorging  them- 
selves thereon,  (this  was  exactly  the  position,  so 
high  was  my  balcony,  so  vast  and  far  extended  the 
sweep  of  vista :)  but  I  never  saw  a  crowd  collected 
on  roadway  or  foot-pavement,  that  could  equal  in 
a  tithe  of  numerical  denseness,  the  gathering  one 
sees  every  day  on  a  Paris  boulevard  round  a  cap- 
tured pickpocket,  or  the  man  in  the  helmet  who 
sells  the  lead-pencils  to  the  music  of  a  barrel-organ 
fixed  on  to  the  top  of  his  carriage,  or  the  industrial 
in  a  blouse,  who  cuts  (on  his  knees)  a  pane  of  glass 
into  fragments  with  a  diamond  of  dubious  water, 
the  original  (of  course)  of  which  he  afterwards  sells 
you  for  the  small  sum  of  one  sou  ;  or  that  can  come 
up  to  the  assemblage  to  be  brought  together  twelve 
hundred  times  every  day  in  Fleet  Street  or  the 
Strand,  by  PUNCH,  or  a  horse  falling  down. 

So  rare  are  crowds  in  this  teeming  city,  that  even 
the  public  infliction  of  the  KNOUT  (which,  to  the 
honour  of  the  Russians,  is  rarer  still  of  occurrence) 
fails  to  bring  the  Tchorni-Narod  together  ;  and, 
when  a  murderer  or  a  brigand  is  knouted,  the 
attendance  of  a  certain  number  of  the  Black  peo- 
ple is  made  compulsory.  I  am  not  going  to  describe 
the  knout  or  the  process  of  its  infliction ;  and  I  don't 
think  I  have  mentioned  it,  as  yet,  by  name,  half-a- 
dozen  times  in  the  course  of  these  papers.  I  never 
saw  it,  or  the  knout-masters,  or  the  miserable  wretch 
who  had  had  it.  I  wish  to  say  here,  however,  that 
this  knout  is  really  another  Great  Russian  Boguey, 
— not  to  the  Russians,  who  know  all  about  it,  but  to 
us  Western  Europeans.  There  is  scarcely  a  book, 


424  A  JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

of  travels  you  can  open — English,  French,  or  Ger- 
man, without  a  chapter  bearing  this  special  heading, 
the  Knout,  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  de- 
scription of  the  punishment  is  taken  from  the  old 
wonderful  magazine  account  of  Madame  Lapouk- 
hin,  who  suffered  in  the  reign  of  the  Empress  Anne 
Elizabeth  ;  or  from  some  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Denis 
travels  of  the  vivacious  author  of  the  Mysteres  de 
la  Russie.  The  Russians  use  the  stick,  the  whip, 
and  the  rod,  freely  enough,  Heaven  knows  ;  but  the 
extreme  agony  of  the  knout,  they  are  exceedingly 
chary  in  having  recourse  to.  There  was  not  one 
criminal  knouted  during  my  stay — at  least,  in  the 
capitals,  (for  the  imminence  of  the  ultimo  ratio  is 
always  made  public  a  week  before  hand,  in  all  the 
newspapers,)  though  I  daresay  some  dozens,  males 
and  females,  were  daily  beaten,  cruelly  but  not 
dangerously,  in  the  police-yards.  The  infliction  of 
the  knout  in  cases  of  murder  (brigands  and  female 
criminals,  who,  the  latter,  only  receive  from  five  to 
twenty  strokes,  are  allowed  to  survive,)  amount- 
ing to  one  hundred  and  fifty  lashes  of  that  terrible 
instrument,  is  almost  always  fatal ;  indeed  I  have 
often  heard  Russians,  whose  humane  dispositions  I 
have  had  no  reason  to  doubt,  say  that  the  police- 
surgeons  had,  generally,  instructions  not  to  attempt 
to  cure  the  criminals  after  their  torture.  It  is  not 
the  actual  knout  that  kills,  but  the  gangrene  that 
supervenes  in  the  neglected  wounds.  The  old  trav- 
eller's assertion  that  a  skilful  executioner  can  kill  his 
patient  with  three  strokes  of  the  knout,  is,  if  surgical 
authority  be  of  any  value,  a  pure  fable.  In  any 


TCIIORNT   NAROD  :    (THE   B-LACK   PEOPLE.)          425 

case,  I  am  enabled  to  state  my  conviction  that  the 
Russian  knout  kills  fewer  criminals  for  capital 
offences  in  two  years  than  we  hang  in  one. 

Crowds  at  such  executions  are,  therefore,  rare. 
Even  the  gathering  together  of  two  or  three  in  no 
name  save  that  of  tyranny  is  an  infrequent  occur- 
rence :  though  the  Czar,  in  the  summer,  can  have 
his  crowd,  and  does  have  it,  to  the  amount  of  some 
hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  men  to  be  reviewed 
on  the  Czarinski  Loug,  or  Champ  de  Mars, — a 
square,  compact  crowd  of  men,  good  enough  to  fill 
a  pit,  who  shout  from  their  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand  throstles,  "  We  thank  you,  Father,"  as  one 
man,  or  rather  one  machine,  when  the  Czar  gra- 
ciously says :  "  Good  morning,  my  children  ; "  and 
shout  again :  "  We  hope  to  do  better  next  time ! " 
when,  if  the  evolutions  have  been  satisfactory,  his 
majesty  says,  "  Well  done,  my  children ! "  who,  in 
cavalry  charge  in  one  pulk,  to  use  Cossack  parlance, 
— in  one  plump  of  spears,  to  use  chivalric  phrase- 
ology, to  the  number  of  fifty  thousand,  and  sweep, 
pricking  fast  as  a  Simoon  from  the  Sommer-Garten 
to  the  grim  marble  palace  where  the  "  frank,  open- 
hearted  sailor,"  the  Grand  Duke  Constantine  lives. 
So  notable  a  thing  is  a  mob,  that  the  few  there  have 
been,  have  become  historical,  and  are  remembered 
like  battles,  or  pestilences,  or  famines,  or  comets. 
Old  men  whisper  low,  now,  of  the  great  silent  crowd 
of  Black  People  that  gathered  round  the  old  Winter 
Palace  one  morning  at  the  commencement  of  the 
present  century ;  when  it  began  to  be  not  noised — 
not  bruited,  but  sinuously  trailed  about  in  move- 


426  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

merits  of  fingers,  by  glanceless  eyes,  by  voiceless 
opening  and  shutting  of  telegraphic  lips — that  a 
dreadful  deed  had  been  done  during  the  night  by 
the  great  Boyards  ;  that  the  mad  Czar  was  dead, 
and  that  Alexander  Pavlovitch  reigned  in  his  stead. 
Most  reverend  seigneurs — potent  and  grave  like- 
wise— you  have  entertained  at  your  boards,  you  have 
sat  at  council  with,  you,  most  beauteous  ladies,  you 
have  waltzed  and  flirted  with,  and  have  had  your  slen- 
der waists  encircled  by  the  kid-gloved  hands  of,  and 
have  accepted  bouquets  and  ices  from — not  the  sons 
or  the  grandsons  of,  but  the  very  men  who  were 
guests  among  those  bloody  sixty  who  supped  at  a 
house  in  the  Pourschlatskaia  Oulitza  on  the  twenty- 
third  of  March,  eighteen  hundred  and  one,  who 
formed  part 'of  the  band  of  murderers  who,  under 
the  guidance  of  Platon  Zouboff  and  Pahlen  and 
Benningsen,  maddened  with  hatred  and  drunk  with 
champagne,  rushed  after  the  orgies  were  over  to  the 
Winter  Palace  on  the  canal,  and  took  the  Czar, 
naked  and  a-bed,  and  slew  him.  They  say  that 
Alexander  the  First  never  recovered  from  the  first 
fit  of  (I  hope  not  guilty)  horror  into  which  he  was 
thrown  by  the  deed  he  profited  so  largely  by ;  that 
the  triumphs  of  the  Borodino  and  the  Beresina,  the 
splendours  of  Erfurt  and  Tilsit,  the  witticisms  of 
Madame  de  Stael,  the  patronage  of  the  first  gentle- 
man (and  we  hope  the  last  gentleman  of  that  pat- 
tern) in  Europe,  including  as  that  patronage  did  a 
Guildhall  banquet,  the  pencil  of  Sir  Thomas  Law- 
rence, the  Temple  of  Concord  on  the  Serpentine, 
and  Sir  William  Congreve's  fireworks — nay,  not 


TCHORNI  NAKOD:  (THE  BLACK  PEOPLE.)      427 

these  nor  the  invocations  of  Madame  Krudener 
could  ever  efface  from  his  mind  the  memory  of  that 
night  of  abominations.  They  say  that  on  his  doubt- 
ful bed  of  death  at  Taganrog  he  writhed  with  more 
than  pain,  and  continually  moaned :  "  Oh !  c'est 
epouvantable  !  c'est  epouvantable  !  "  and  then,  after  a 
lapse,  "  Empereur  !  "  The  gentlewoman  was  not  by 
as  in  the  tragedy,  but  the  physician  was ;  and  he 
knew  his  patient  was  suffering  from  ills  that  physic 
could  not  cure.  The  lord  of  sixty  million  souls  was 
haunted  by  the  remembrance  of  that  night.  He  saw 
in  imagination  the  bed-room  ;  the  conspirators  reel- 
ing in  ;  the  Czar  in  his  shirt,  hiding  behind  a  screen; 
the  incoherent  torrent  of  adjurations  and  menaces 
in  French  and  Russ  ;  and  then  the  dreadful  knock- 
ing at  the  outer  door ;  the  fear  of  rescue  (though, 
indeed,  it  was  but  another  band  of  conspirators 
arriving)  ;  the  overturn  of  the  lamp,  and  the  end  of 
that  monarch.  I  say,  seigneurs  and  ladies,  you  have 
walked  and  talked  with  some  of  those  who  supped 
and  killed  afterwards.  They  are  very  old,  white- 
headed  men  now,  high  in  office,  decorated  from  the 
nave  to  the  chaps,  great  diplomatists,  adepts  in  state- 
craft ;  but  there  was  a  time  when  they  were  dashing 
young  officers  in  the  guards,  and  they  saw  in  reality 
that  which  Alexander  saw  only  in  imagination. 
They  could  tell  you  whether  it  was  Platon  Zouboff 
or  Count  Pahlen  who  smashed  Paul's  skull  in,  with 
the  hilt  of  his  sword ;  they  could  tell  you  whether  it 
was  Pahlen  or  Benningsen  who  knelt  on  the  Czar's 
breast,  and  put  him  out  of  his  misery  by  strangling 
him  with  an  embroidered  scarf.  I  wonder  whether 


428  A  JOUKNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  survivors  of  that  scene  ever  think  of  the 
matter  at  all!  Whether  at  congress  table,  or  court 
ball,  or  civic  banquet,  in  opera-box,  or  silk-lined  car- 
riage, or  actresses'  boudoir,  they  ever  think  of  the 
overturned  lamp,  the  sword-hilt,  and  the  scarf.  Does 
the  Avenger  of  Blood  pursue  them  ?  does  Atra  Cura, 
the  black  horseman,  ride  behind  them  ?  Or  do  they 
look  at  the  twenty-third  of  March,  eighteen  hundred 
and  one,  as  a  mere  boyish  freak — a  peck  of  wild 
oats  which  they  have  sown  profitably,  and  reaped 
abundant  crops  of  protocols  and  paraphes,  stars, 
crosses,  and  titles  from  ? 

Hand  obllviscendum,  indeed  !  Life  would  be  im- 
possible without  a  shower-bath  of  the  waters  of 
Lethe  every  quarter  of  a  century  or  so ;  without  the 
sponge  being  applied  when  the  slate  is  too  full,  and 
the  tub  of  whitewash  being  brought  in  when  the 
schedule  has  swelled  too  grossly.  This  man,  I  know, 
forged  when  he  was  twenty — rector's  church-warden 
now.  This,  stole  a  goose,  and  was  whipped  for  the 
theft,  somewhere  in  the  West  Indies — high  up  in  the 
Wooden-Spoon  Referendaries  Office  now.  This, 
robbed  his  father,  deserted  his  children,  broke  .his 
own  wife's  heart,  and  ran  away  with  another  man's 
— knighted  last  week.  This,  was  the  most  covetous 
hunks,  the  hardest-hearted  usurer,  the  unjustest 
steward  that  money-bags  have  been  clutched  by 
since  Harpagon  or  Hopkins — he  is  dead.  The  Rev- 
erend Hango  Head,  M.  A.,  is  writing  a  Latin  epi- 
taph for  him,  and  his  disconsolate  widow  has  ordered 
a  memorial  window,  setting  forth  his  virtues  (in  pre- 
Raphaelitically  painted  glass)  in  the  chancel  of 


TCHOKNI  NAROD:  (THE  BLACK  PEOPLE.)      429 

Saint  Jonathan  and  Saint  Gyves  Great  Wilderton 
Church. 

Once  again  the  Black  People  met,  silently  and 
timorously  to  learn  that  they  had  changed  masters, 
when,  in  eighteen  hundred  and  twenty-six  the  news 
arrived  of  Alexander's  death,  and  the  cruel  Constan- 
tine  abdicated,  and  the  Czar  who  was  to  do  so  much 
and  so  little  for  good  and  evil,  for  the  glory  and  the 
shame  of  Russia,  had  to  sieze  his  diadem,  perforce 
with  ensanguined  hands,  and  wrap  a  gory  shroud 
round  his  imperial  purple.  As  before,  the  Black 
People  had  neither  act  nor  part  in  the  events  of 
which  they  were  frightened  spectators.  Constan- 
tine  or  Nicholas,  it  was  not  one  salted  cucumber, 
one  copeck's  worth  of  black  bread,  one  keaker  of 
quass,  the  more  to  them.  The  boyards  alone  were 
to  change  masters ;  and  they  were  to  be  the  slaves 
of  slaves  for  ever  and  ever.  The  real  crowd  was 
one  of  soldiery,  who  fought  regiment  against  regi- 
ment, some  for  Nicholas,  some  for  Constantine ; 
some  for  a  cloudy  myth  of  a  constitution  and  a  re- 
public their  leaders  had  got,  heaven  knows  how, 
into  their  muddled  heads — perhaps  while  in  garrison 
in  some  German  town  among  moon-struck  illumin- 
ati  in  eighteen  hundred  and  thirteen  ;  some  for  they 
knew  not  what, — for  a  fancied  millennium,  perhaps, 
of  more  vodki,  and  the  stick  being  broken  and  cast 
into  the  pit  for  a  thousand  years.  They  fought  in 
the  Great  Admiralty  Square  till  the  crisp  snow  was 
patched  with  crimson  pools,  and  the  cavalry  horses, 
dabbling  in  them,  pimpled  the  expanse  with  their 
hoof-nails  for  hundreds  of  yards  around.  So,  as  all 


430  A  JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

men  know,  General  Miloradovitch  was  slain ;  the 
cannon  began  to  thunder ;  the  Czar  Nicholas  came 
to  his  own ;  Pestel  and  the  others  were  hanged ; 
princes  and  counts  and  generals  went  in  chains  to 
Siberia;  and  the  Tchorni-Narod,  having  stripped 
the  corses  of  the  slain  lying  on  the  now  russet  snow 
on  the  Admiralteskaia  Ploschad,  went  to  sell  the 
old  clothes  and  trinkets  in  the  Tolkoutchji-Rinok 
(Great  Elbow  Market),  and  then  to  their  several 
avocations  of  droschky  driving  and  quass  selling, 
and  hewing  the  wood,  and  drawing  the  water. 

There  was  to  come  a  time  though,  when,  for  once 
in  their  oppressed  lives,  the  Black  People  were  to 
make  a  public  appearance  as  a  Mob,  tumultuous, 
ferocious,  and  dangerous.  The  crowd  of  the  mou- 
jiks  in  the  Sinnaia  or  Haymarket  of  St.  Petersburg, 
is  the  one  historical  crowd  in  which  the  people  were 
actors  and  not  looking  on.  This  was  in  the  first 
year  of  Asiatic  cholera  declaring  itself  en  perma- 
nence at  St.  Petersburg.  It  is  now  domiciled  there 
en  permanence,  and  the  Tchorni-Narod  are  as  accus- 
tomed to  it  as  to  dirt,  or  to  vermin,  or  to  the  stick. 
The  Government  had  very  praiseworthily  taken  the 
best  sanitary  precautions  for  the  prevention  of,  and 
had  adopted  the  most  accredited  remedies  for  the 
cure  of,  this  awful  malady.  It  seemed  like  a  stern 
measure  of  retribution  meted  out  to  the  wicked 
rulers  of  an  oppressed  people,  that  where  they  were 
really  endeavouring  to  do  good  the  Tchorni-Narod 
rebelled  against  it.  They  could  swallow  the  camel 
of  tyranny — they  strained  at  the  gnat  of  benevolence. 
The  Government  had  sown  in  ignorance  ;  they 


TCHORNI  NAROD:  (THE  BLACK  PEOPLE.)      431 

reaped  in  revolt.  The  great  hospitals  of  Oubouk- 
hoff  and  Kalinkine  had  both  been  placed  under  the 
superintendence  of  German  physicians,  who  exerted 
themselves  to  the  utmost  to  treat  successfully  the 
almost  innumerable  cases  of  cholera  that  were  daily 
brought  in. 

The  average  number  of  cholera  cases  in  St.  Peters- 
burg alone,  in  the  summer  last  past,  was,  according 
to  the  Gazette  de  PAcade'mie,  (as  reliable  a  Russian 
document  as,  I  believe,  can  well  be  found,)  three 
hundred  and  ten  per  diem.  Of  the  average  in  Mos- 
cow I  have  no  information.  The  vast  majority  of 
these  cases  were  among  the  Tchorni-Narod,  and 
were  fatal.  This  can  easily  be  understood,  if  we 
remember  the  diet  and  positively  Nomad  habits  of 
the  masses  in  Holy  Russia.  The  Ichvostchiks  fre- 
quently sleep  on  their  droschky  benches,  in  the  open 
air,  exposed  to  every  fluctuation  of  the  always  fluc- 
tuating weather.  The  dvorniks  or  yardmen  always 
sleep  alfresco,  wrapped  in  their  sheepskin  touloupes 
or  pelisses.  The  mechanics  and  labourers  who  come 
into  St.  Petersburg,  for  the  summer  months,  from 
the  outlying  provinces  of  Carella  and  Ingria,  sleep 
also  a  la  belle  etoile,  wherever  the  most  convenient 
scaffolding  or  mortar-heap  can  be  found ;  and  there 
are  thousands  of  the  Black  People  who  sleep  where- 
soever, and  under  whatever  circumstances,  they  can. 
The  Russians,  who  are  so  studiously  looked  after  by 
the  police,  to  the  minutest  shade  of  passports  and 
police,  are  perhaps  the  people  in  Christendom  who 
habitually,  and  to  the  greatest  extent,  possess  the 
key  of  the  street.  When,  in  addition  to  this,  it  is 


432  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

borne  in  mind  that  the  Russian  moujik  scarcely  ever 
tastes  meat,  and  that  his  ordinary  food  is  salted 
cucumber,  black  bread,  and  quass,  the  prevalence  of 
cholera  in  St.  Petersburg  will  be  easily  accounted 
for. 

The  people,  in  their  miserable  ignorance  of  right 
and  wrong,  caught  hold  of  an  idea.  This  idea  was 
no  doubt  industriously  disseminated  among  them  in 
the  first  instance  by  agents  of  that  secret  democratic 
and  socialist  party  which — Siberia,  the  mines,  Count 
Orloff  's  cabinet  and  its  scourgings,  exile,  confisca- 
tion, fortress-dungeons  and  espionage  notwithstand- 
ing— existed  occult,  indomitable,  and  active  as  Bal- 
zac's Treize  has  always  continued  to  exist  in  Russia 
from  the  time  of  the  first  French  Revolution.  The 
idea  was  that  the  moujiks,  their  brethren,  were  be- 
ing systematically  poisoned  by  the  German  doctors, 
and  by  express  direction  of  the  Government.  For 
once  Ivan  Ivanovitch  forgot  that  the  Czar  was  his 
father,  his  pastor  and  master,  his  guide,  philosopher, 
and  friend,  and  Heaven's  vicegerent  upon  earth. 
An  analogous  report  of  the  wells  having  been  pois- 
oned was,  it  will  be  remembered,  current  among  the 
populace  in  Paris  in  the  first  year  of  the  cholera's 
visitation,  and  several  emeutes  took  place;  nor  in 
England,  in  eighteen  thirty -two,  were  there  wanting 
alarmists  of  the  Mrs.  Grundy  school,  to  ascribe  the 
pestilence — on  the  one  side  to  the  machinations  of 
the  disappointed  boroughmongers ;  on  the  other  to 
the  malevolence  of  Levellers,  Radicals,  and  Trades- 
union  men.  Ivan  forgot  the  power  of  the  police 
and  his  own  helplessness.  He  and  his  comrades  in 


TCHORNI  NAROD  :   (THE   BLACK   PEOPLE.)         433 

thousands  stormed  the  hospitals,  massacred  the  doc- 
tors and  their  assistants  under  circumstances  of  the 
most  shocking  brutality,  threw  the  beds  and  bedding 
out  of  the  windows,  carried  off  the  patients,  (to  die, 
poor  wretches,  in  carts  and  cellars,  and  under  vege- 
table-stalls and  horse-troughs ;)  and  then,  like  a  mob 
of  schoolboys  who  have  screwed  up  their  courage  to 
pelt  an  unpopular  usher,  and  who  afterwards  with 
outward  words  of  boasting  and  rebeUion,  but  with 
an  inward  sinking  of  their  hearts  into  their  high-lows, 
bar  themselves  into  the  school-room,  defying  the 
masters,  but  knowing  full  well  that  authority  will 
get  the  best  of  it,  and  that  Birnam  Wood  will  be 
brought  to  Dunsinane,  for  brooms  to  thrash  them 
with ; — the  Ivan  did  his  barring  out.  All  cowering 
and  wondering  that  he  could  have  been  so  bold  in 
the  Sennai'a ;  entrenching  himself  behind  trusses  of 
hay  and  piles  of  fruit  and  vegetables — beneath  the 
bulks  of  butchers'  stalls  and  among  crates  of  crockery, 
(for  they  sell  all  things  in  the  Haymarket;)  armed 
with  such  rude  instruments  of  defence  as  hatchets, 
and  straightened  scythes  attached  to  poles,  and  the 
great  three-pronged  forks  with  which  the  bread  is 
drawn  from  the  peetch,  or  stove;  he  awaited  the 
coming  of  the  troops. 

I  have  no  doubt,  that  had  the  soldiery  really 
arrived  and  set  to  work,  the  moujiks  would  have 
suffered  the  most  violent  cannonade  and  musket 
practice,  without  attempting  to  move  until  they 
were  routed  out  by  the  bayonet.  Their  energy  was 
over ;  their  rebellion  was,  thenceforth,  inert  and  pas- 
sive. But  the  Czar  Nicholas  knew  too  well  the 

19 


434  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

temperament  of  his  children  to  send  against  them  or 
horse,  or  foot,  or  artillery.  To  cowhide  your  slave : 
good;  but  to  destroy  valuable  property  by  taking 
your  slave's  life,  none  but  a  foolish  slaveholder 
would  do  that.  It  is  an  old  story,  but  worth  the 
telling  again,  that  Nicholas,  unattended  by  escort, 
or  aide-de-camp,  or  groom,  was  driven  in  his  single 
droschky,  with  the  one  single  Ischvostchik  before 
him  to  drive  him  to  the  place  of  the  revolt.  That, 
arrived  on  the  Sennaia,  he  quickly  alighted,  and, 
wrapped  in  his  gray  coat,  and  helmed  and  plumed, 
stalked  through  the  masses  of  rebellious  thousands, 
(who  made  an  astonished  vaccillating  lane  for  him 
to  pass,)  towards  the  church  with  the  four  copolas, 
and  the  dome  with  the  silver  stars,  that  stands  in 
the  right  hand  upper  extremity  of  the  Haymarket. 
That,  ascending  the  marble  stairs  of  that  fane,  he 
prostrated  himself  before  the  image  of  the  saint 
that  stood  in  the  porch ;  and  then  suddenly  turned 
round  to  the  gazing  masses,  and,  extending  his  right 
hand,  cried  out,  with  the  full  strength  of  his  mag- 
nificent voice,  "  People,  on  your  knees ! "  That  the 
thousands,  as  one,  knelt  down  and  bowed  their  fore- 
heads to  the  dust ;  that  the  Czar  then  pronounced  a 
short  allocution  to  them,  bidding  them  ask  pardon 
for  their  sins,  telling  them  how  wicked  they  were  ; 
how  good  he  was ;  that,  while  he  was  speaking, 
some  cat-like  police  agents  glided  in  among  the 
people  and  took,  without  a  shadow  of  resistance, 
some  hundreds  of  prisoners,  who  were  noiselessly 
removed  to  suffer  the  Pleidi,  or  the  Battogues,  and 
to  be  afterwards  sent  to  Siberia ; — and  that  the  trick 


TCHORNI  NAROD  :    (THE   BLACK   PEOPLE.)         435 

was  done.  Yet  I  have  heard,  in  Russia,  Russians 
say  that  the  Czar  Nicholas,  like  Sir  Robert  Peel — 
THE  Sir  Robert  Peel,  I  mean — was  so  constitution- 
ally timorous,  that  a  spaniel  yapping  about  his  heels, 
or  a  monkey  leaping  on  to  his  shoulder,  was  suffi- 
cient to  thow  him  into  an  agony  of  terror.  To  my 
mind,  the  artilleryman,  who,  meeting  the  Bengal 
tiger,  stooped  down  and  looked  at  that  beast  from 
between  his  legs,  so  that  the  terrible  tiger,  not  know- 
ing what  on  earth  the  strange  animal  gazing  at  him 
could  be,  howled  in  affright,  took  to  his  paws,  and 
enjungled  himself  in  the  rattle  of  a  snake's  tail,  was 
the  only  compeer  I  have  ever  heard  of,  worthy  to 
rank,  for  real  courage  and  presence  of  mind,  with 
him  who  bade  the  people  who  had  massacred  the 
doctors  fall  on  their  knees  ;  and  was  obeyed. 

The  Tchorni-Narod  can  assert  their  individuality 
sometimes,  therefore ;  but,  it  is  only  transiently  and 
spasmodically ;  and  the  fit  is  followed  by  pitiable 
reaction.  It  has  been  before  observed,  that  an  en- 
raged sheep  is  for  the  moment  nearly  as  troublesome 
a  customer  to  deal  with  as  a  roaring  lion.  Almost 
always  the  Russian  peasant  takes  his  thrashing,  and 
general  ill-treatment,  quietly :  nay,  will  thank  his 
corrector,  and  kiss  the  rod.  He  will  not  cry  out : 
"  How  long,  O  Lord !  How  long  ?  "  but  will  bear 
(as  a  rule)  his  to  us  intolerable  miseries,  as  long  as 
that  miserable  life  of  his  endures.  But  times  will 
come  when  the  sheep  goes  furious.  He  has  the  gids 
— to  speak  as  a  shepherd.  Then  he  rages ;  then  he 
storms;  then  he  whirls  round ;  then  he  butts  forward 
in  a  momentarily  potent  frenzy  ;  and  then  woe  be- 


436  A  JOUKNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

tide  Bourmister  and  Starosta — commander  of  pun- 
ishment and  executant  of  punishment :  woe  betide 
even  the  noble  Boyard;  for  Ivan  Ivanovitch  will 
rend  him  asunder,  and  spare  not  his  noble  wife  nor 
.his  noble  daughters,  nor  the  very  children  that  are 
unborn :  and  after  this  come  speedily,  reaction,  and 
repentance,  and  a  dreadful  retribution  on  the  part  of 
outraged  authority. 

As  I  have  pointed  out,  a  riotous  crowd — a  crowd, 
indeed,  at  all  in  St.  Petersburg  or  Moscow,  is  a  nov- 
elty and  an  event  to  be  remembered,  and  made  a 
thing  historical  of — will  my  reader  ask  any  Russian 
acquaintance  to  relate  a  few  anecdotes  of  the  peas- 
ant crowds,  who,  from  time  to  time,  gather  them- 
selves together  down  south — towards  the  east,  or  in 
the  far  west  of  the  gigantic  empire — in  governments 
you  never  heard  of,  in  provinces  you  never  dreamed 
of?  You  shall  hear  how  some  delicate  countess 
who  has  been  the  belle,  not  only  of  the  salons  of  the 
northern  capital,  but  of  Paris,  and  London,  and  Vi- 
enna; who  has  retired,  after  some  love-pique  against 
a  charge-d '-affaires,  or  some  scandal  with  her  hus- 
band, to  her  vast  estates,  hundreds  of  versts  beyond 
Moscow,  and  has  there  devoted  herself  to  the  task 
of  torturing  her  slaves ;  has  invented  and  practised 
such  unheard-of  cruelties  upon  her  bower-maidens 
and  her  wretchedest  dependents,  down  to  her  cooks 
and  scullions,  that  some  direful  evening  there  has 
been  a  crowd;  that  the  crowd  have  poured  boiling 
oil  on  her,  and  have  hung  her  up  by  the  hair  of  her 
head,  while  they  have  scarified  her  by  drawing  in- 
furiated cats  over  her ;  that  they  have  plucked  out 


TCHOKNI  NAROD  :   (THE   BLACK  PEOPLE.)         437 

her  nails  and  her  eyes,  and  singed  her  before  a  slow 
fire,  and  finally  have  hacked  her  to  pieces  with 
hatchets,  and  eaten  her  brains.*  That  after  the 
frightful  retaliation  had  been  committed  came  a  re- 
action, and  terror,  and  abject  cringing.  The  general 
commanding  the  provincial  government  came  down ; 
there  was  a  reign  of  terror ;  many  were  beaten  to 
death :  more  had  their  nostrils  torn  out,  and  were 
sent  to  Siberia,  there  to  work  in  the  mines  and  in 
chains,  as  slaves,  for  life. 

You  don't  see  these  narratives  in  the  Journal  de 
St.  Petersbourg,  or  in  the  Abeille  du  Nord,  or  in  the 
Invalide  Russ,  among  the  catalogue  of  recent  .pro- 
motion in  the  illustrious  orders  of  St.  Anne,  St. 
Wladimir,  and  St.  Alexander  Nevskoi,  or  among  the 
official  despatches  announcing  new  victories  over 
the  Circassians.  They  do  occur  though,  from  time 
to  time.  The  government  keep  them  dark  :  and  you 
hear  them  after  dark  and  subtle  whispers,  as  "  cette 
chose  terrible  qui  est  arrive  dernierement" — that  ter- 
rible event  in  the  government  of  Orel,  or  Kharkoff, 
or  Tamboff,  which  has  happened  lately,  and  which 
is  so  very  regretable  ; — but  which  will  happen  again 
and  again,  I  opine,  as  long  as  the  Tchorni-Narod, 
the  Black  People  of  Russia,  are  ground  down  and 
oppressed,  as  they  are  in  this  present  era  of  grace. 

*  At  Bagatoi,  in  the  government  of  Kowrsk,  in  eighteen  hun- 
dred and  fifty-four. 


438          A  JOURNEY  DUE  NOKTH. 

XX. 

THE  IKS. 

THE  title  of  this  paper  may  seem  excedingly  absurd. 
But  there  are  many  Iks  and  Chiks  and  Niks  in  Russ- 
land,  whom  it  behoves  to  have  information  about. 

In  the  Nevskoi — the  great  avenue  of  the  Tents 
of  Kedar  I  am  so  strangely  constrained  to  dwell 
amongst  and  in  its  immediate  ducts,  the  Great  and 
Little  Morskaias — you  will  see  panorama-passing 
during  the  day,  all  the  Iks  worth  noticing.  In  these 
streets  only  will  you  be  able  to  view  any  thing  ap- 
proaching to  the  Johnsonian  or  Fleet  Street  aspect 
of  City  Life.  Away  from  the  Nevskoi  and  the 
Morskaias,  the  vast  streets  of  Petersburg  are,  at  all 
seasons,  little  better  than  deserts.  Solitary  figures 
of  slaves  and  soldiers  glide  by  occasionally,  ghost- 
like ;  but,  on  Quay  or  Esplanade,  in  Oulitza,  Per- 
spective, Ploschad,  or  Pereoulok,  there  is  (as  I  have 
hinted  in  the  Tchorni-Narod)  nor  throng  nor  pres- 
sure— and  I  have  seen,  at  high-noon,  standing  in  the 
centre  of  the  Admiralty  Square,  one  dog ;  a  mangy 
cur  with  a  ridiculous  tail — who,  in  the  insolence  of 
undisputed  possession,  set  his  four  paws  all  wide 
apart,  and  wagging  that  truncated  handle  of  his, 
barked  shrilly  and  scornfully  at  the  high  palaces,  as 
though  they  had  been  the  walls  of  Balclutha,  and 
he  was  delighted  that  they  were  desolate. 

Very  slowly,  but  with  crustaceous  tenacity,  has 


THE  IKS.  439 

the  Nevsko'i  in  its  ways,  its  inns  and  outs,  and  its 
Iks,  fixed  itself  upon  me.  It  was  shy  and  coy  at 
first.  Let  me,  as  briefly  as  I  may,  essay  to  go  round 
the  clock  with  you  on  the  Nevskoi,  and  trot  out  the 
Iks,  in  their  morning  as  well  as  evening  aspects. 
Remember,  this  is  summer-time ;  the  beginning  of 
July ;  (for  I  know  nothing  of  Acris  Hyems  in  Rus- 
sia ;)  and  take  note,  if  you  please,  that  the  time  is 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

I  am  not  at  all  ashamed  to  say  that  I  have  been 
out  all  night — at  least  all  the  time  usually  set  apart 
in  civilized  countries  for  that  appalling  season  of 
existence — at  a  ball,  and  that  I  am  rattling  home 
behind  an  Ischvostchik  from  the  seventeenth  line  at 
Wassily-Ostrow;  and,  though  wrapped  in  a  thick 
overcoat,  shivering  with  cold.  The  sun  is  manifest 
enough  and  bright  enough  in  all  conscience,  and  the 
smiling  morn  (smiling  a  polite,  heartless,  soulless, 
Sheffield  plate,  thoroughly  Muscovite  smile)  is  busily 
employed  in  tipping  the  gaudy  domes  with  a  brighter 
lustre  than  their  gold  leaf  gives  them.  Not  a  shop, 
above  ground,  is  open  as  yet — the  aristocratic  Bou- 
tiquiers  of  the  Nevsko'i  are  as  late  risers  as  their 
customers — but,  in  the  basement,  there  are  plenty  of 
small  "  Lavkas " — grocery,  chandlery,  and  bakery 
shops  open ;  to  say  nought  of  the  vodki-dens  with 
the  great  bunches  of  grapes  in  gold  leaf  suspended 
over  their  portals,  to  show,  I  presume,  that  wine  is 
not  sold  there — which  dram  establishments  never 
seem  to  be  closed  at  all.  The  water-carts  go  heavily 
lumbering  past;  then  I  hear  a  clanking  as  of  many 
tin-pots,  or  of  marrowbone  and  cleaver  music,  in 


440  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

which  the  metal  unduly  preponderates  ;  and  see  ad- 
vancing towards  me  a  gaunt,  bony,  ill-favoured 
woman  in  a  striped  petticoat  held  up  by  the  usual 
braces,  the  usual  full-sleeved  innermost  garments,  a 
crimson  handkerchief  tied  over  her  freckled  face,  and 
streaming  behind,  like  a  Bedouin's  burnouse  when 
the  capuchin  is  thrown  suddenly  back  from  the  head. 
Over  each  shoulder  she  carries  a  heavy  arc  of  wood, 
like  a  fully  bent  bow,  but  hollowed  out  in  the  centre 
so  as  to  fit  her  shoulder,  and  serve  as  a  yoke  ;  to 
either  end  of  which  are  suspended  fasciculi  of  the 
before-mentioned  tin-pots,  much  battered,  and  with 
brazen  lids  and  spouts.  This  is  a  milk-woman. 
She  does  not  deliver  the  caseous  beverage  from 
house  to  house,  as  with  us,  but  takes  her  stand  at 
some  patented  spot — generally  at  the  "  Auge "  or 
feeding-trough  of  a  droschky-stand.  There  are  no 
such  things  as  nosebags  in  the  cabbicular  hierarchy 
in  this  country ;  and,  by  a  most  humane  provision, 
the  animals  are  rendered  independent  of  the  caprice, 
or  cruelty,  or  stinginess  of  their  drivers,  and  are  fed 
under  police  superintendence  at  the  public  auges  or 
troughs,  to  whose  support  all  the  Ischvostchiks  con- 
tribute their  quota  at  stated  times  and  in  abundance. 
She  either  stands  at  one  of  these  or  close  to  the 
cabane  or  wooden  hut  of  a  Boutotsnik.  Hither 
come  either  the  dvorniks  (yardmen),  or  the  slough 
(man-servants),  or  the  sloujanka  (maid-servants),  to 
lay  in  a  stock  of  milk  for  the  day.  What  the 
Petersburgers,  who  are  not  Tartars  (for  these  live 
almost  entirely  upon  milk)  can  want  with  milk,  I 
am  puzzled  to  discover.  They  almost  uniformly 


THE   IKS.  441 

drink  black  coffee  after  dinner,  and  seldom  indulge 
in  that  beverage  for  breakfast  (the  rich  prefer  cham- 
pagne and  Lafitte ;  the  poor,  quass  or  vodki)  ;  they 
drink  their  tea  without  milk  in  ninety-nine  cases  out 
of  a  hundred  ;  I  never  saw  any  remarkable  profusion 
or  custards  or  ice-creams  at  Russian  dinner-tables ; 
and  it  is  my  firm  impression  that  there  are  no  chil- 
dren in  St.  Petersburg  to  drink  it.  There  are  little 
men  and  women,  little  cadets,  little  grand-dukes, 
small  Tchinovniks,  miniature  policemen,  Lilliputian 
admirals,  infinitesimal  Archimandrites  and  Proto- 
popes,  minified  countesses,  minute  coquettes ;  dia- 
mond, ruby,  and  pearl  editions  of  that  Book  which 
will  be  Reviewed  some  day;  but,  of  bouncing, 
bawling,  buoyant,  bothering,  delightful  children, 
there  are  none  to  be  found  here.  It  makes  one 
shudder  here  to  see  the  small  tots  of  humanity,  who 
only  knew  your  ankles  yesterday,  and  are  scarcely 
tall  enough  to  be  on  speaking  terms  with  your  knee- 
caps even  now,  conversing  gravely  in  two  or  three 
languages,  and  bowing,  and  scraping,  and  lifting 
their  caps,  and  unbuckling  their  sword-belts,  as 
though,  good  Lord!  as  though  they  had  been 
bandied  about,  and  worn,  and  punched,  and  bitten, 
as  often  as  a  George  the  Third  sixpence,  instead  of 
being  silver  pennies,  bright,  sharp,  fresh,  new  from 
Nature's  mint.  The  babies  here,  too — the  very 
babies  in  arms — frown  sternly  on  you  as  they  pass 
by,  or  solve  mathematical  problems  on  their  nurses 
arms,  with  their  limp  tiny  fingers,  biting  their  lips 
thoughtfully  the  while.*  These  precocious  civil  and 
*  Whenever  I  go  into  a  strange  country  I  set  myself  sedulously 


442  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

military  functionaries,  incipient  diplomatists,  sprout- 
ing philosophers,  conquerors — what  need  have  they 
of  a  milk  diet  ?  Babies  though  they  be,  they  re- 
quire strong  meat.  Give  them  their  bird,  let  them 
crack  their  bottle,  light  their  pipes,  lace  them  the 
tightest  of  corsets,  hand  them  the  daintiest  of  fans, 
for  they  are  grown  up,  before  they  are  grown  at  all. 

to  work  to  discover  (and  this  you  may  perhaps  have  already  in- 
ferred) something  like  a  national  and  picturesque  costume.  Gen- 
erally I  am  disappointed,  and  find  nothing  but  prosaic  hats  and 
coats,  bonnets  and  shawls,  black  cotton  stockings,  and  linsey 
woolsey  petticoats.  I  experienced  great  delight,  however,  and 
thought  I  had  at  last  found  a  land  of  handsome  dresses,  when, 
walking  the  streets  during  my  nonage  in  Petersburg,  I  lighted 
upon  divers  females,  generally  ruddy,  comely  often,  and  clad  in 
the  same  description  of  gala  costume  I  have  attempted  to  describe 
in  the  holiday  dress  of  the  "  Baba."  The  most  plainly  attired 
had  sarafannes  or  tunics  of  crimson  silk  edged  with  broad  gold 
lace,  embroidered  shoes,  petticoats  of  rich  stuff,  necklaces,  mas- 
sive gold  earings,  and  kakoschniks  glistening  with  sham  jewels 
and  seed-pearls.  They  invariably  had  small  Russians  with  them, 
either  in  arms  or  toddling  by  their  sides ;  and  I  conjectured  them 
to  be  wives  of  wealthy  native  merchants ;  but  I  was  very  soon 
afterwards,  and  to  my  extreme  disappointment,  informed  that 
they  were  WET-NURSES  ;  and  that  this  masquerade  costume  was 
worn  by  them  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  with  as  little  pi«turesque 
truth  as  John  Thomas  wears  the  maroon  plush  and  chrome  yellow 
aiguillettes  of  the  Countess  of  Squllpington.  These  wet-nurses 
are  usually  from  Southern  Russia.  (They  say  no  babies  can  live 
that  are  nursed  by  women  from  the  marshy  government  of  St. 
Petersburg.)  Not  one  in  five  hundred  of  them  is  man ied.  They 
have  a  child,  and  cast  it  into  the  Foundling  Hospital,  get  a  cer- 
tificate of  health  from  a  doctor,  and  become  wet-nurses  in  noble 
families.  It  is  a  profession.  It  is  a  paying  one.  A  discontented 
Sloujanka  (if  she  be  not  a  serf)  will  say,  "  This  does  not  suit  me  ; 
I  cannot  support  the  Barynia.  I  shall  go  and  be  a  wet-nurse." 


THE   IKS.  443 

Whoever  drinks  the  milk,  there  are  plenty  of 
Laitieres  and  Cremieres  in  the  capital.  They  have 
a  quarter  to  themselves  too,  not  exactly  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, but  on  the  other  side  of  the  water,  in  the  vil- 
lage of  Okhta,  where  they  dwell  among  their  pots 
and  keep  their  cows.  The  Petersburg  milk-women 
are,  I  believe,  mainly  the  property  of  that  colossal 
slave  proprietor  (he  has  a  hundred  thousand  they 
say)  Count  Tcheremetieff.  SUCH  cows,  too,  the 
milk-women  have  !  You  may  frequently  see  them 
being  led  about  the  streets,  gaunt,  bony,  woebe- 
gone little  brutes,  and  I  declare  not  one  whit  bigger 
than  Shetland  ponies  ;  or  perhaps,  indeed,  Shetland 
cows,  if  the  cattle  of  the  Ultima  Thule  are  as 
diminutive  as  their  horses.  It  is  only  very  early  in 
the  morning  that  cattle  or  sheep  are  seen  about  the 
streets ;  they  are  then  mostly  on  their  way  to  Was- 
sily-Ostrow,  where  are  the  slaughter-houses  and  the 
majority  of  the  summer  butcher's  shops.  I  see,  still 
rattling  along  in  this  early-late  droschky  of  mine, 
(the  Ischvostchik  has  not,  probably,  been  to  bed  for 
a  week,  but  is  considerably  fresher  than  I  am,)  mul- 
titudes of  horned  beasts  and  sheep,  yet  for  all  their 
numbers,  only  speckling  the  vastness  of  the  Open, 
coming  adown  the  great  street  from  the  Smolnoi 
road,  along  the  quays,  across  the  Pont-Neuf  or  Novi- 
Most,  and  so  on  to  their  doom  to  be  made  meat  of. 
The  sheep,  albeit  somewhat  longer-woolled,  are  much 
like  ours ;  they  are  not  ruddled,  but  appear  to  be 
branded  with  a  curious  cross  within  a  circle,  and  a 
distinguishing  letter,  on  the  left  flank.  I  wonder 
they  don't  stamp  them  with  the  double  eagle !  The 


444  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

pigs  are  truculent,  evil-eyed  animals  enough,  with 
gashed  snouts  and  switch  tails.  Observing  the  re- 
markable bright  russet  hue  of  some  of  these  porcine 
Russians,  I  can  for  once  acknowledge  as  a  truth  that 
legend  of  the  "  Red  Pig,"  which  in  my  skepticism  I 
had  hitherto  been  led  to  rank,  as  fabulous,  with  Guy 
Earl  of  Warwick's  Dun  Cow,  and  More  of  More 
Hall's  Wantley  Dragon.  The  sheep  (in  Russia)  are 
driven  by  moujiks,  clothed  in  toulopes  or  loose 
leathern  coats,  which,  with  an  utter  disregard  of 
delicacy  and  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  the 
animals  themselves,  are  evidently  made  of  sheepskin. 
Their  legs — the  moujiks',  I  mean — are  swathed  in 
criss-cross  bandages  of  leather  or  bark,  much  resem- 
bling the  cruciform-leggings  worn  by  Mr.  James 
"Wallack  in  the  melo-drama  of  the  brigand.  These 
Corydons  wield  the  instrument  we  so  often  read 
about,  and  so  seldom  see,  the  real  shepherd's  crook 
— not  the  long  pole  with  a  squeezed-up  hook,  which 
the  Sussex  pastors  carry,  but  exactly  resembling 
a  bishop's  crozier.  The  shepherds  have  no  collies — 
no  dogs  to  worry  the  sheep,  or  keep  them  together ; 
their  crook  serves  them  for  all  in  all ;  and  they  pos- 
sess a  peculiar  agility  in  intertwining  the  hook  with 
the  woolly  locks  of  the  sheep's  fleece,  and  then, 
dexterously  reversing  the  instrument,  driving  the 
end  of  the  staff  (sharpened  and  shod  with  iron)  into 
his  ribs  in  a  manner  calculated  to  cause  great  agony 
to  the  mutton,  but  highly  conducive  to  discipline 
and  good  order.  The  pig-drivers  have  Cossack 
whips,  with  thongs  about  six  times  as  large  as  the 
staff,  with  a  little  perforated  ball  of  lead,  strung, 


THE   IKS.  445 

which  runs  up  and  down  the  lash,  so  that  the  pig  is 
sure  to  have  it  somewhere.  This  whip  makes,  when 
cracked,  a  tremendous  noise ;  and  from  the  expres- 
sion I  have  observed  on  the  baconian  physiognomy, 
I  don't  think  that  animal  likes  it.  Finally,  the  cat- 
tle drivers,  clad  (also  in  seeming  insult  to  their  vic- 
tims) in  loose  capes  of  pie-bald  calf-skin,  as  if  they 
had  been  foraging  in  the  Pantechnicon,  London, 
and  had  robbed  some  hair-trunks  of  their  coverings. 
They  blow  veritable  cow-horns,  which  make  an  un- 
earthly wailing  noise,  and  sound  so  discordantly  that 
I  very  much  marvel  that  the  cows  don't  die  of  that 
tune. 

Over  the  glassy  Neva,  blue  as  the  sky  that  roofs 
it,  with  ships  from  all  parts  of  the  world  mirroring 
their  cobweb  rigging  in  its  depths,  over  the  Neva 
by  the  new  bridge  on  to  the  Quai  Anglais,  and  I 
am  not  half  home  yet.  See,  here  are  the  Iks  all  at 
once,  and  in  great  force  all  over  the  new  bridge 
without  crowding  it,  and  stationary,  though  there  is 
no  show  to  see,  no  orator  to  hear,  no  time  to  laze 
away ;  for  they  are  all  bound  for  a  weary  day's 
work. 

That  man  with  a  short,  stunted,  scrubby,  but 
thick  beard,  with  the  leathern  cap  and  blue  cloth 
band  in  lieu  of  the  ordinary  Ischvostchik's  hat ;  "with 
the  blue-striped  shirt,  pink-striped  breeches,  and  im- 
mutable boots,  and  fluttering  over  all  like  the  toga 
of  an  ancient  Roman  in  difficulties,  or  the  time- 
worn,  and  by  stern-creditor-not-renewed  mantle  of 
Don  Caesar  de  Bazan — a  tattered,  patched,  greasy, 
stained,  villanous,  but  voluminous  leathern  apron — 


446  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

is  a  Batchmatchnik,  a  shoemaker.  He  beside  him, 
with  the  cunning  fox-face,  the  unwholesome  com- 
plexion, the  bloodshot  eyes,  the  slight  stoop  in  the 
back,  the  large  hands  with  lissom  fingers  crooked 
somewhat  at  the  tips,  the  general  weary,  done-up, 
hunted-dog  look,  telling  of  late  hours,  and  later 
vodki ;  he  who  has  a  square  bonnet  of  .stiff  blue 
paper  something  like  a  lancer's  cap  on  his  head, 
a  black  calico  apron  over  his  caftan,  and  black 
calico  sleeves  reaching  half-way  up  his  arms,  must 
be  a  Typograpschtchik — a  journeyman  printer,  who 
has  just  knocked  off  work  at  the  bureaux  of  the 
Journal  de  St.  Petersbourg  in  the  Pochta-Oulitza, 
or  General  Post- Office-street  hard  by ;  or  else  he  has 
been  setting  all  night  in  type,  positive  or  superlative 
lies  in  some  imperial  oukase,  or  edict,  or  prikaz. 
Yonder  fellow,  with  the  herculean  frame,  the  fair- 
haired,  blue-eyed,  full-bearded,  Richard-Cceur-de- 
Lion  head,  and  the  eye  like  Mars  to  threaten  or 
command,  (he  was  whipped  yesterday,)  is — it  needs 
not  his  bared  arm,  his  coarse  canvas  suit,  but  always 
with  boots,  the  rope  tied  round  his  waist,  and  the 
tape  round  his  forehead,  and  the  film  of  fine  drab 
powder  with  which  he  is  covered  from  hair  of  crown 
to  ball  of  toe — to  tell  you,  a  Kammenstchik,  or 
stone-mason.  Beside  him  is  his  brother  in  building 
— not  an  Ik  this  time,  but  an  Ar;  but  he  may  be 
allowed,  I  hope,  to  press  in  with  the  ruck — a  ruddy 
fellow  in  a  pink  shirt  and  the  usual  etceteras,  "with 
a  hatchet  stuck  in  his  girdle ;  a  merry -faced  varlet, 
with  white  teeth,  who,  if  he  had  but  an  ass  to  lead, 
might  be  Ali  Baba ;  but  who  is  his  own  beast  of 


THE   IKS.  447 

burden,  wots  of  no  caverns,  and  is  simply  Axinti 
Ivanoff  the  Stoliar,  or  carpenter.  He  can  do  more 
feats  of  carpentry,  joinery,  ay,  and  cabinet-making 
and  upholstery,  with  that  single  clumsily-made, 
blunt-looking  toula  hatchet  of  his,  than  many  a 
skilled  operative  in  London  who  earns  his  three 
pounds  per  week.  Axinti,  of  course,  is  a  slave ; 
and,  being  very  clever  at  his  trade,  is  at  high  obrok, 
and  is  very  profitable  to  his  master.  The  facility 
and  dexterity  with  which  the  Russian  mechanics 
handle  the  hatchet,  and  make  it  serve  in  lieu  of 
other  tools,  are  marvellous  and  almost  incredible, 
are  certainly  unequalled,  save  by  the  analogous  skill 
of  the  peasants  of  the  Black  Forest,  who  are  re- 
ported to  be  able  to  cut  down  trees,  square  timber 
for  houses,  carve  comic  nutcrackers  and  ugly-mugged 
toys,  shave  themselves,  and  cut  their  meat,  all  with 
the  aid  of  one  single  penknife.  The  hatchet  of  the 
Russian  carpenter  seems  to  serve  him  in  lieu  of 
plane,  saw,  chisel,  and  mallet,  and  (it  would  almost 
seem)  gimlet  and  screwdriver.  I  knew  a  Russian 
who  declared  "  qu?il  avalt  un  paysan^  ("  favais  un 
paysan" — I  had  a  peasant — is  as  common  a  com- 
mencement to  a  Russian  conversation  as  "  once 
upon  a  time  "  to  a  fairy  tale,  or  "  it  is  now  some 
eighteen  years  since  "  to  the  speech  of  a  virtuous 
venerable  in  a  melo-drama  at  home)  who  could  glue 
boards  together  with  his  hatchet.  No  men  (I  except 
the  Batmen)  who  have  traversed  Moscow  or  Peters- 
burg streets,  and  have  watched  carpenters  at  work, 
either  in  their  open  shops  or  at  the  ligneus  pave- 
ment, can  have  failed  to  remark  the  wonderful  dex- 


448  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

terity  with  which  they  convert  a  rough,  shapeless 
piece  of  wood,  into  a  plank,  a  panel,  an  hexagonal 
paving-block,  a  staff,  a  batten,  a  fagot,  a  quoin,  a 
board,  or  a  shelf.  The  process  seems  instantaneous. 
The  carpenters  have  other  tools  besides  the  hatchet, 
doubtless;  though..  I  never  saw  a  Russian  Stoliar 
with  a  complete  basket  of  tools  beside  him.  But 
the  hatchet  is  emphatically  an  implement  germane 
and  to  the  Russian  manner  born,  as  the  cloth-yard 
shaft  was  to  the  English  bowmen  of  yore,  before  the 
long-bow  came  to  be  used  in  England  in  a  manner 
that  our  stout  ancestors  of  Crecy  and  Agincourt 
never  dreamt  of.  With  the  hatchet,  the  Russian 
moujik  hews  at  the  black  pine-forests  of  Olonetz 
and  Wiborg,  for  logs  for  his  houses,  for  timber  for 
the  Czar's  ships ;  with  the  hatchet  he  defends  him- 
self against  the  grisly  bear  and  ravenous  wolf ;  with 
the  hatchet  he  cuts  a  way  for  his  sledge  in  winter 
through  the  frozen  snow  ;  with  the  hatchet  he  joints 
frozen  meat,  and  cuts  up  frozen  fish,  and  chops  fro- 
zen vegetables.  The  hatchet  is  his  principal  aid  in 
building  his  house,  and  in  constructing  his  furniture, 
and  in  cutting  his  fuel ;  all  of  which  he  does  him- 
self. If  your  Kibitk,  or  Tarantasse,  or  Telega  break 
down  on  the  road,  you  holloa  out  at  the  full  strength 
of  your  lungs  for  assistance ;  whereupon  a  group  of 
peasants  presently  appear,  crying  "  Stichasse  !  "  (di- 
rectly!) who  mend  your  broken  trace,  or  spring,  or 
axle,  or  reshoe  your  near-wheeler,  or  heal  your  drunken 
yemstschik's  broken  head,  with  a  hatchet ! — charging 
you  many  roubles  for  the  accommodation.  With  a 
hatchet  Peter  the  Great  commenced  the  massacre  of 


THE   IKS.  449 

the  Strelitzas  ;  with  a  hatchet  some  say  he  murdered 
his  own  son ;  with  a  hatchet  sometimes,  even  in 
these  days  of  grace,  the  Russian  moujik,  maddened 
by  drink  and  despair,  rushes  on  the  lord  who  has 
oppressed  him,  and  with  that  murderous  tool  dashes 
out  his  brains.  It  puzzles  me  that  the  government 
should  allow  the  slaves  to  carry  these  ugly-looking 
weapons  constantly  in  their  girdles.  I  shouldn't 
like  to  offer  my  serf  fifty  blows  with  a  stick  when  he 
had  an  axe  in  his  belt.  I  wouldn't  have  minded 
trusting  Uncle  Tom  with  a  bowie-knife ;  but  I 
should  have  kept  my  hatchets  under  lock  and  key  if 
I  had  Sambo,  or  Quimbo,  or  Three-fingered  Jack 
about  my  property. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  use  of  the  hatchet  that  the 
Russian  peasant  displays  extraordinary  dexterity, 
and  power  of  achieving  great  things,  with  appar- 
ently the  most  contemptible  and  inadequate  means. 
There  is  a  well-known  anecdote,  which  I  may  be 
excused  for  repeating  here,  of  a  Russian  peasant, 
named  Telouchkine,  who,  some  thirty  years  since, 
contracted,  for  the  sum  of  eighty  silver  roubles,  (the 
materials  of  course  being  found  him,)  to  regild  the 
spire,  the  cross,  and  the  angel  surmounting  it,  of  the 
cathedral  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  (the  burial-place 
of  the  Czars,  from  Peter  to  Nicholas)  in  the  fortress 
of  Petersburg.  He  accomplished  this  gigantic  task 
without  the  aid  of  any  scaffolding  or  platform  work 
whatsoever,  simply  sitting  astride  on  a  little  saddle 
suspended  by  cords.  The  spire,  from  its  base  to  the 
summit  of  the  cross  is  sixty-five  sagenes,  or  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty-five  English  feet  in  height  (455)  :  the 


450  A   JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 

cross  alone  being  eight  sag-enes  or  fifty-six  feet  high. 
I  never  heard  the  authenticity  of  this  feat  disputed. 
I  have  never  heard  what  reward,  beyond  the  eighty 
roubles  contracted  for,  was  bestowed  on  Telouch- 
kine.  Perhaps  his  proprietor,  as  a  compliment  to 
his  talents,  increased  his  yearly  obrok ;  but  I  am 
afraid  that  when  he  died,  he  did  not  leave  his  secret 
to  any  one.  When  I  left  St.  Petersburg,  the  angel 
and  cross  in  the  church  in  the  fortress  had  fallen,  as 
to  gilding,  into  a  woful  state  of  second-hand-look- 
ing dinginess.  It  had  become  again  a  question  of 
regilding  these  ornaments;  but,  this  time,  no  Te- 
louchkine  came  forward  with  an  eighty-rouble  offer. 
A  most  elaborate  scaffolding,  whose  symmetry  of 
proportions  seemed  to  me  quite  astonishing,  had 
been  erected  round  the  spire  for  the  use  of  the  work- 
men. It  had  cost,  I  was  told,  a  good  many  thou- 
sand roubles,  and  was  to  cost  a  good  many  thousand 
more,  before  even  a  book  of  gold-leaf  could  be  ap- 
plied to  cross,  or  angel,  or  spire. 

No  man  who  knows  these  poor  Russian  people 
with  their  rude  tools,  and  hands  seldom  disciplined 
by  regular  apprenticeship,  can  doubt  that  it  is  faith 
that  helps  them  along  in  such  works  as  Telouch- 
kine  accomplished.  That  strong  and  blind  belief 
in  the  Czar  and  in  the  saints,  in  a  material  re- 
ward from  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  St.  Sergius  or 
St.  George,  St.  Wladimir  or  St.  Nicholas,  in  the 
shape  of  heaven-sent  roubles,  or  a  dupe  sent  by  the 
saints  in  their  way  to  swindle,  or  a  cash-box  for 
them  to  steal,  (without  the  possibility  of  detection,) 
or  a  miraculous  softening  of  their  masters'  hearts, 


THE   IKS.  451 

and  their  exemption  from  the  stick  for  years  ;  to- 
gether with  a  certain  hope  and  trust  that  for  this 
good  deed  done  to  the  saints  and  the  Czar,  they 
will  be  rewarded  with  a  real  golden  crown,  a  real 
white  robe,  a  real  harp,  a  real  cloud  to  sit  upon,  to 
all  eternity,  while  the  Barynn,  the  Starosta,  and  the 
Bourmister,  go  to  the  devil,  to  be  beaten  to  pieces 
by  Gospodin  Schrapschin,  (Lord  Beelzebub,)  and 
burnt  to  cinders  by  Gospodin  Tchort  (Lord  Lucifer: 
the  Russians  are  very  polite  to  their  devils,  and  give 
them  titles  of  honour.)  This  strong  belief  leads  men 
like  Telouchkine  to  swing  four  hundred  feet  high 
on  six  inches  of  wood  hung  to  a  hempen  cord ;  it 
led  the  moujiks  who  built  up  the  Winter  Palace  in 
eleven  months,  and  perished  by  thousands  building 
it,  to  work  cheerfully,  patiently,  enthusiastically,  in 
the  broiling  sun  and  the  icy  blast,  because  it  was 
the  Gossudar,  the  Czar's  house,  and  because  the 
government  had  caused  it  to  be  given  out,  that  the 
works  had  been  blessed  by  an  angel ;  it  led  the 
gaunt  gray-coated  men  in  the  flat  caps  to  fight,  and 
stand  and  march,  and  charge,  and  starve  and  die, 
uncomplainingly,  unyieldingly,  heroically,  on  the 
heights  of  Alma  and  in  the  valley  of  Inkermann, 
in  casemates  full  of  blood  and  smoke  ;  in  hospitals, 
where  the  wounded  -could  not  lie  for  the  dead  that 
were  a-top  of  them ;  on  bone-covered  steppes,  in 
pestilential  marshes;  on  muddy  tongues  of  ooze, 
and  weed,  and  treacherous  sand,  that  skirt  the  Putrid 
Sea. 

Are  not  these  all  Iks? — for  what  is  the  Soldatt, 
the  soldier,  but  a  shaven  moujik  ? — and  have  I  been 


\ 
452  A   JOURNEY  DUE  NORTH. 

digressing?  I  know,  though,  these  Iks  are  not  those 
I  left  on  the  bridge.  There  is  another  Ik.  Big  beard, 
red  face,  but  all  the  rest  as  white  and  floury,  as  the 
mason  is  gray.  This  is  a  boulotchnik,  or  baker — a 
journeyman  baker,  mind;  for  were  he  a  master,  he 
would  not  be  a  Russian  or  a  serf  at  all,  but  a  free 
German.  For  a  wonder,  he  is  not  booted,  but  wears 
a  pair  of  coarse  canvas  trousers,  and  drab  list  slip- 
pers. You  must  not  confound  him  with  that  bow- 
legged  industrial,  clad  also  from  head  to  foot  in 
white,  but  not  floury,  who  is  circulating  restlessly 
among  the  Iks,  and  bears  before  him  a  flat  tray,  or 
shallow  basket,  full  of  bread  of  the  multiform  shapes 
the  Russians  delight  in — bread  in  long  twisted  rolls ; 
bread  in  double  semicircles,  hollow,  like  a  pair  of 
handcuffs ;  bread  in  round  balls,  and  bricks,  and 
tablets,  and  big  flat  discs,  and  lumps  of  no  particu- 
lar shape.  Some  of  this  seems  white  and  light 
enough,  almost  cake  or  puff-paste  in  appearance ; 
but  the  great  mass  is  of  the  approved  Rye  or  Pum- 
pernickel pattern ;  and  though  appetisingly  light  in 
its  rich  brownness  without,  is,  when  cut,  as  dark  as 
the  skin  of  a  mulatto.  This  Ik  is  a  Xhlaibchik  liter- 
ally Bread-man — if  indeed  Ik  or  Chik  or  Nik  may 
be  understood  to  mean  man.  Perhaps  the  Ik  is  only 
synonymous  with  our  "  er  "  in  Costermonger,  Fish- 
monger, Fruiterer,  Poulterer.  The  Xhlaibchik  is 
doing  a  smart  trade  on  the  bridge  among  the  Iks ; 
(whom  I  hope  you  have  by  this  time  discovered  form 
part  of  the  Tchorm-Narod,  the  Black  people ;)  for 
from  four  to  five  in  the  morning  is  breakfast  time 
with  them.  Some  other  peripatetic  tradesmen  min 


THE  IKS.  453 

ister  to  the  co-epicurean  wants  of  the  Iks.  There  is 
the  Tcha'ichik — the  tea-man — who  carries  a  glowing 
samovar  beneath  his  arm  wrapped  in  a  thick  cloth, 
from  whose  centre  protrudes  a  long  horizontal  spout 
and  tap.  He  also  carries,  by  a  strap  over  his  shoul- 
der, a  flat  tray,  covered  with  a  fair  linen  cloth,  on 
which  is  his  array  of  tumblers,  and  earthen  mugs, 
pewter  spoons,  lumps  of  sugar,  (seldom  called  for,) 
and  slices  of  lemon,  much  in  demand.  He  serves 
his  tea,  all  hot,  as  the  merchant  in  the  cab-rank 
centre  of  the  Haymarket,  London,  does  his  potatoes. 
The  tea  is  of  the  very  coarsest,  bitterest,  and  vilest 
of  flavour.  I  tasted  it,  and  it  costs  two  copecks  a 
tumbler.  It  is  full  of  strange  ingredients  that  float 
about  in  it,  herbaceous,  stony,  gritty,  and  earthy; 
but  it  is  not  adulterated  in  Russia,  being  made  from 
the  cheap  brick  tea  mixed  with  sheep's  blood,  as 
coffee  with  chicory — so  called  from  the  bricks  or  in- 
gots into  which  the  leaf  is  compressed — brought  by 
caravans  out  of  China,  by  way  of  Kiatki.  It  is 
written  that  you  must  eat  a  peck  of  dirt  before  you 
die ;  and  I  think  that  about  four  tumblers  of  hot 
Petersburg  street  tea  would  go  a  long  way  towards 
making  up  the  allowance.  There  is  another  Tchai- 
chik — the  cold-tea-man.  He  with  a  prodigious  vase 
of  glass,  with  a  pewter  top,  and  through  whose  pel- 
lucid sides  (the  vase's)  you  can  see  the  brown  liquid 
frothing  with  much  oscillation,  and  with  much  sliced 
lemon  bobbing  up  and  down  in  it,  leans  moodily 
against  the  parapet  of  the  Novi-Most;  for  the  morn- 
ing air  is  a  nipping  and  an  eager  one,  and  the  cry  is, 
as  yet,  almost  entirely  for  warm  tea.  Not  so  with 


454  A   JOURNEY   DUE   NORTH. 

the  Kolbasnik,  or  dealer  in  characuterie : — there  is 
positively  no  strictly  English  word  for  it,  but  seller 
of  "  pork  fixings  "  will  explain  what  I  mean.  He  is 
a  blithe  fellow  with  a  good  face  and  a  shirt  so  bright 
that  he  looks  like  a  Russian  robin  red-breast,  and 
goes  hopping  about  among  the  Iks,  vaunting  his 
wares,  and  rattling  his  copecks,  till  a  most  encourag- 
ing diminution  begins  to  be  apparent  in  his  stock  of 
sausages,  pig's  and  neat's  feet,  dried  tongue,  hung 
beef,  salted  pork  fat,  (a  great  Kolbasnik  delicacy,  in 
lumps,  and  supplying  the  place  of  bacon,  of  whose 
existence  the  Russians  seem  unaware,)  and  balls 
of  pork  mincemeat,  resembling  the  curious  viands 
known  in  cheap  pork  butchery  in  England,  I  believe, 
as  Faggots. 

There  are,  as  yet,  few  women  or  children  crossing 
the  bridge  ;  and  of  those  few  the  former  are  counter- 
parts of  the  Okhta  milk-woman,  without  her  yoke 
and  bundle  of  tin  cans.  There  pass,  occasionally, 
silent  files  of  soldiers,  clad  either  in  vile  canvas 
blouses,  or  else  in  gray  capotes  gone  to  rags,  whose 
military  character  is  only  to  be  divined  by  their 
shaven  chins,  and  closely-cropped  heads,  and  long 
moustaches.  These  are  men  drafted  off  from  the 
different  regiments  not  on  actual  duty,  to  work  in 
the  docks,  at  unloading  ships  at  the  custom-house ; 
or  warehousing  goods ;  or  at  the  private  trades  or 
occupations  at  which  they  may  be  skilled.  They 
receive  wages,  which  are  said  facetiously  to  go  to- 
wards the  formation  of  a  regimental  reserve  fund ; 
but  which  in  reality  go  to  augment  the  modest 
emoluments  of  his  excellency  the  general,  or  his 


THE   IKS.  455 

high-born    honour   the    major,  or  his  distinguished 
origin  the  captain. 

The  background  of  these  groups  is  made  up  by 
the  great  Iks  of  all  Iks,  the  Moujiks,  the  Rabotniks, 
(the  generic  term  for  workmen,  as  a  Moujik  and 
Christian  are  for  slaves,)  the  indefinable  creatures  in 
the  caftans,  who  are  the  verb  active  of  the  living 
Russ  condemned  for  their  lifetime  to  be,  to  do,  and 
to  suffer.  This  is  why  they  tarry  on  the  bridge  on 
their  way  to  work — those  multifarious  Iks.  There 
is  a  shrine-chapel  at  its  foot  towards  Wassily-Os- 
trow : — a  gilded  place,  with  pictures,  filagree  railings, 
silver  lamps  suspended  from  chains,  huge  waxen 
candles  continually  burning,  and  steps  of  black  mar- 
ble. Every  Ik,  every  woman  and  child,  every  sol- 
dier, every  Ischvostchik  as  he  passes  this  shrine, 
removes  his  hat  or  cap,  crosses  himself,  and  bows 
low  before  it.  Many  bow  down  and  worship  it — 
literally  grovelling  in  the  dust;  touching  the  earth 
repeatedly  with  their  foreheads,  kissing  the  marble 
steps  and  the  feet  of  the  saint's  image,  and  looking 
devoutly  upwards  as  though  they  longed  to  hug  the 
great,  tall,  greasy  wax  candles.  Not  the  poorest  Ik 
but  fumbles  in  his  ragged  caftan  to  see  if  he  can 
find  a  copeck  for  the  saint's  money-boxes,  which, 
nailed  to  the  wall,  guards  the  staircase  like  sphinxes. 
Drive  on  thou  droschky,  (of  which  the  Ischvost- 
chik has  reverently  lifted  his  hat,  crossing  himself 
repeatedly  as  we  passed  the  joss-house,)  for  I  am 
very  hungry  and  want  my  breakfast. 


456  A  JOURNEY  DUE   NORTH. 


L'ENVOI. 

IT  is  the  lot  of  every  man  who  aspires  to,  who 
achieves  publicity,  or  who — as  very  frequently  hap- 
pens— has  publicity  thrust  upon  him,  to  be  favoured 
by  the  attention  of  that  numerous,  and  apparently 
increasing  class,  the  "people  who  go  about  say- 
ing things."  I  am  afraid  that  I  shall  never  attain 
sufficient  celebrity  for  these  small  scandalmongers 
to  take  the  trouble  of  reporting  that  I  have  gone 
raving  mad,  that  I  have  sold  myself  to  a  publisher 
for  a  thousand  guineas  per  annum,  that  I  was  tried 
at  the  Old  Bailey  in  early  life  for  the  offence  of 
piracy  on  the  high  seas,  or  that  I  have  run  away 
from  my  wife,  and  am  residing  at  Hombourg  with  a 
Mingrelian  princess.  Yet,  when  I  returned  to  Eng- 
land, in  December,  1856,  I  found  that  the  "  people 
who  go  about  saying  things "  had  hung  upon  the 
the  very  slight  peg  of  its  being  known  in  a  few 
London  "  circles  "  that  I  was  the  author  of  a  "  Jour- 
ney Due.  North,"  an  amusing  budget  of  scandal. 
I  have  to  thank  those  industrious  and  well-informed 
gentlemen,  the  London  correspondents  of  the  minor 
provincial  journals,  for  their  sedulous  circulation  of 
a  cheerful  report  that  I  had  been  sent  to  Siberia, 
that  I  had  been  expelled  from  the  Russian  territory 
by  the  secret  police,  and  that  I  was  dead.  This  last 
echantillon  of  journalistic  waggery  obtained  consid- 
erable currency,  and  I  receive  to  this  day  occasional 
communications  from  anonymous  correspondents 
who  are  anxious  to  know  whether  I  am  yet  in  the 


L'ENVOI.  457 

land  of  the  living.  A  bolder  gazetteer  hazarded  the 
insinuation  that  I  was  in  the  pay  of  the  Russian 
government,  and  that  the  somewhat  extreme  views 
I  had  adopted  with  regard  to  Russian  institutions 
were  but  to  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  deep  cunning 
and  exceeding  Jesuitry.  It  may  afford  the  last- 
alluded-to  journalist  some  satisfaction  when  I  pub- 
lish the  confession  that  I  have  twice  visited  the 
Russian  embassy  in  Chesham  Place,  once  in  the 
company  of  a  lady  who  required  Baron  Brunnow's 
signature  to  her  passport,  and  once  to  pay  a  visit 
to  my  esteemed  friend,  Mr.  Pierce,  who  of  course  is 
a  secret  agent  of  the  Autocrat,  being  the  baron's 
accomplished  maitre  cPhotel.  Secret  agents,  it  will 
be  observed,  always  go  down  the  area-steps ;  and  I 
only  regret  that  I  cannot  favour  my  "  London  Cor- 
respondent" with  an  accurate  report  of  my  inter- 
view with  the  Secretary  of  Legation  in  the  pantry. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  most  ingenious  report  to 
which  these  unpretending  sketches  gave  rise  was 
one  that  I  had  never  been  to  Russia  at  all,  and  that, 
establishing  a  Patmos  at  Ostend  or  Ghent — some 
said  Brussels,  some  went  so  far  as  Spa — I  had  pro- 
vided myself  with  a  good  library  of  books  of  Rus- 
sian travel,  and  so  "fudged"  my  "Journey  Due 
North"  in  the  manner  attributed  (I  believe  with 
about  equal  justice)  to  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  anent 
his  Impressions  de  Voyage. 

Curiously,  now,  sitting  at  home  among  English 
scenes  and  English  faces,  I  am  not  altogether  with- 
out grave  doubts  of  my  own  as  to  whether  I  ever 
visited  Russia  in  the  flesh,  and  whether  mine  was 

20 


458  A   JOURNEY   DUE  NORTH. 

after  all  but  a  spiritual  journey  Due  North,  a  Pisgah 
view  of  the  Muscovite  Palestine.  True  ;  here  is 
my  passport  scrawled  and  stamped  all  over  by  his 
Imperial  Majesty's  police  agents ;  here  is  a  penknife 
with  the  Toula  mark  on  the  haft ;  here  is  the  rouble- 
note  I  brought  away  (against  the  law)  as  a  souvenir; 
here  are  my  Russian  hotel  bills,  post  letters,  banker's 
bordereauz ;  here  the  Gazette  de  L' Academic,  where 
I,  the  "  well-born  Lord  von  Sala,"  (save  the  mark,) 
am  described  by  public  advertisement  as  having  the 
intention  to  quit  St.  Petersburg  in  a  fortnight  from 
the  date  affixed.  Still  do  I  doubt  ;  still  do  those 
Russian  experiences  loom  so  dimly  in  the  distance ; 
still  are  they  so  unreal,  so  shadowy,  that  by  times  I 
am  half  convinced  that  my  "  London  Correspond- 
ent" must  be  right,  that  I  was  labouring  under 
hallucination  the  summer  before  last,  and  mistook 
the  Montagne  de  la  Cour  for  the  Nevskoi  Perspec- 
tive, the  Place  d'Armes  at  Ghent  for  the  Tsarinski 
Loug.  It  is  only  when  from  time  •  to  time  I  visit 
some  dear  Russian  friends ;  when  by  the  pleasant 
waters  of  the  Avon  we  talk  about  old  times,  about 
Alexis  Hardshellovitch,  and  the  undarkened  nights 
we  spent  so  happily  in  gondolas  on  the  Neva,  in 
groups  upon  the  Palace  Quay,  in  the  cool  saloons  of 
the  Mala  Morskaia  ;  when  "returning  home  the  dear 
old  samovar  is  lighted  again,  and  the  blue  smoke  of 
the  papiros  begins  to  curl  from  fair  lips  ;  when  the 
tea  gleams  in  the  tumbler,  and  the  delicate  lemon 
floats  on  the  surface,  and  when  somebody's  voice 
murmurs  low  the  plaintive  notes  of  Vbs  na  pouti  celo 
balscho'ia — that  I  am  once  more  in  Russia,  that  the 


L'ENVOI.  459 

shadow  becomes  substance,  and  that  we  laughingly 
bid  the  London  Correspondent  go  hang  for  a  back- 
biter. 

But  they  are  gone  too,  now,  the  friends  ;  and 
things  Russian  become  mistier  than  ever.  Posi- 
tively the  only  course  that  remains  open  to  me  in 
order  to  avoid  falling  into  utter  skepticism  concern- 
ing matters  "  Due  North,"  is  to  revisit  Russia.  I 
wonder  whether  the  little  old  gentleman  at  Berlin 
will  give  me  a  visa  to  my  passport  again,  and  tell 
me  that  it  is  gut  nach  Russland  ?  Next  time,  how- 
ever, if  I  am  once  more  brought  beneath  the  talons 
of  the  double  eagle,  you  shall  know  what  the  Czar's 
strange  land  looks  like  in  winter.  Adieu. 


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